From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishprogenitorpro‧gen‧i‧tor /prəʊˈdʒenɪtə $ proʊˈdʒenɪtər/ noun [countable] 1 formalCOME FROM/ORIGINATE someone who first thought of an ideaprogenitor of a progenitor of cubism2 HB technicalFAMILY a person or animal that lived in the past, to whom someone or something living now is related SYN ancestor
Examples from the Corpus
progenitor• But he carved his place in Sooner lore and will go down as the progenitor of the Oklahoma program's rebirth.• Binet is considered the progenitor of intelligence testing.• Thatcher was merely the midwife for Essex man: the progenitor was Tony Benn.• They are derivative of the culture, not the progenitors of it.• Actually, scientists say that cloned animals will not be exact replicas of their progenitors.• Despite the changing modes of life, they are attentive to the paradoxical utterances of their progenitor.• They became yet more complex, true progenitors of real plants and animals.• Pure Przewalski's horses, genetically the closest to the wild progenitors of domestic breeds, are all in zoos.progenitor of• Graham was a great progenitor of modern dance.Origin progenitor (1300-1400) Latin progignere “to produce young” 