Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A line of ancestors; a lineage.
  • noun A list of ancestors; a family tree.
  • noun A chart of an individual's ancestors used in human genetics to analyze Mendelian inheritance of certain traits, especially of familial diseases.
  • noun A list of the ancestors of a purebred animal.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To breed (animals) with reference to pedigree (chiefly).
  • noun Line of ancestors; descent; lineage; genealogy; list of ancestors; genealogical tree.
  • noun Synonyms Pedigree, Genealogy, Lineage. Pedigree may be used with reference either to a person or to an animal, as the pedigree of a horse; the others only to a person or family. In some cases it extends to geologic time: as, the pedigree of Cænozoic horses. Genealogy is the series of generations, coming down from the first known ancestor. Lineage views the person as coming in a line of descent, generally honorable, which, however, need not be traced, as in a genealogy or pedigree. Pedigree and lineage are generally much narrower words than genealogy, the last usually covering some personal history and including details of various matters of interest to the persons or families concerned.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A line of ancestors; descent; lineage; genealogy; a register or record of a line of ancestors.
  • noun (Stock Breeding) A record of the lineage or strain of an animal, as of a horse.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having a pedigree.
  • adjective Purebred.
  • noun A chart, list, or record of ancestors, to show breeding, especially distinguished breeding.
  • noun uncountable Good breeding or ancestry.
  • noun A history or provenance.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the descendants of one individual
  • adjective having a list of ancestors as proof of being a purebred animal
  • noun ancestry of a purebred animal
  • noun line of descent of a purebred animal

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English pedegru, from Anglo-Norman pe de grue : pe, foot (from Latin pēs; see pedi–) + de, of (from Latin ; see de–) + grue, crane (from the resemblance of a crane's foot to the lines of succession on a genealogical chart) (from Vulgar Latin *grūā, from Latin grūs, gru-; see gerə- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman pe de gru, a variant of Old French pié de gru ("foot of a crane"), from Latin pedem ("foot") + gruem ("crane").

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Examples

Comments

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  • I liked this word so much better before it became a dog food brand....

    September 25, 2007

  • The truth was, the Otchkinsons had risen in the world, and would have felt happier now in a road with a longer pedigree. - ''Yashima, or, The Gorgeous West'' by R T Sherwood, 1931.

    December 24, 2008

  • Ancestral lineage, professional preparation, life history, criminal record, or provenance, especially in tabular form.

    July 27, 2009