FOREMOTHER Synonyms: 31 Similar and Opposite Words

foremother

noun

Definition of foremother

as in grandmother

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of foremother The show is partly Star's love letter to the glamour of Paris (a city he's been enamored with since his teens), with a protagonist who embodies both the winningest and messiest instincts of her foremother, Carrie Bradshaw. — Harper's BAZAAR, 10 Jan. 2023 No one emerges at the end of the book as entirely good or bad (save, perhaps, for Busia, Regan’s culinary foremother). — Makana Eyre, Washington Post, 9 Jan. 2023 In a year when avant-pop stars such as Rosalía thrilled with volcanic vocals and cybernetic beats, their foremother dug in yet-stranger soil. — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 15 Dec. 2022 Taking inspiration from her literary foremother Zora Neale Hurston, Walker centers southern Black women, who are all too often misrepresented in American culture. — Usa Today Staff, USA TODAY, 27 Sep. 2021 See All Example Sentences for foremother

Recent Examples of Synonyms for foremother

Noun

In addition to those shot, a victim’s grandmother was injured while fleeing the scene near Florida A&M’s Bragg Memorial Stadium.

— Karina Tsui, CNN Money, 25 Oct. 2026
The girls sometimes lived with their grandmother or an aunt, other times with their mother and Lasha’s father, who was a part of the sisters’ lives on and off until he was convicted of armed bank robbery in 2003.

— Anja Aronowsky Cronberg, New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2026

Definition of grandmother

Noun

Yang Asha is the mythical ancestress of the Miao people, an ethnic minority in China closely related to the Hmong of Southeast Asia.

— Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 26 Nov. 2020
His own mother, aged ninety, who remembered her aunt, had been able to share stories of their ancestress with the grandchildren who’d had no idea, before now, what their background might be.

— Susan Choi, Harper's magazine, 6 Jan. 2020

Definition of ancestress

Noun

Animal print, of course, has long been a fixture in the Kardashian-Jenner matriarch’s wardrobe.

— Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 24 Oct. 2026
Ingunn Rasmussen, the warm, chatty matriarch behind Kitchen on the Edge (and hiking guide Audun's sister), took over the property in October 2001 and now runs it with her son, Håvar Holmen.

— Arati Menon, Condé Nast Traveler, 24 Oct. 2026

Definition of matriarch

Noun

Their forebears at the Academy snubbed canonical documentaries like The Thin Blue Line, Roger & Me, and Hoop Dreams.

— Nate Jones, Vulture, 16 Oct. 2026
First our forebears began to imitate peers learned behaviors, creating group norms that supported coordinated work.

— Michael Morris, Fortune, 2 Oct. 2026

Definition of forebear

Noun

According to family history, DaCosta Levy’s family lineage traced to Portugal, where his ancestors had been mariners — almost certainly Sephardic Jews who scattered across the Atlantic world after the Inquisition.

— Zachary Kranc, Sun Sentinel, 27 Oct. 2026
Government officials previously said that these 11 families split from a common male-line ancestor some 600 years ago, and are now at least 36 degrees of kinship from Naruhito.

— Chad de Guzman, Time, 26 Oct. 2026

Definition of ancestor

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foremost

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Style

“Foremother.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/foremother. Accessed 29 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of foremother

noun

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