The revered earliest ancestor; by extension, any person held in high esteem as the founder of a school of thought, business, or movement. tradition.

(literary) Under the traditional patriarchal system, a man who acts as the legal heir to two branches of a family at once

An ancestral temple dedicated to a clan's distant ancestors; often used in literary contexts referring to the duty of protecting these shrines

To succeed as an heir in order to continue the family line and carry on ancestral sacrifices