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Progenitor

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(pronounced proh-jen-uh-tur)  noun

Definition

1. a direct ancestor; forefather; something from which a person or other living thing is biologically descended.  2. an originator; precursor; somebody who is a source of new thinking, activity, creative endeavor, etc.

Main Example

• According to popular belief, President Eisenhower originated the wonderful system of interstate highways that crisscross our nation. But, Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads," recently told "CBS News Sunday Morning" that the "moment of conception" of this system occurred almost two decades earlier, in February 1938, when President Franklin Roosevelt summoned his transportation chief into the Oval Office, drew six lines representing possible routes--three horizontal and three vertical--on a map of the U.S., and said: "I'd like you to research this and (determine) whether we can make it pay for itself." Thanks to WWII that soon followed, Roosevelt's grand design could not get an okay from Congress until the 1950s. In fact, says a CBS reporter, by the time Ike entered the White House, "plans for the interstate system were all but a done deal." So, the next time you admire our network of interstates, remember that FDR is the real progenitor.

Workplace Examples

• Before we present this final plan to the board, shouldn't we run it by Bill and Julia, at least out of courtesy? After all, they are the progenitors of this whole idea of offering access to the company's services via smartphones.
• When I tell people about the scientific theory that birds descended from dinosaurs--how the giant tyrannosaur was, in a way, the progenitor of that tiny little house sparrow you see--some of them laugh and look at me as if I were crazy.

Other Examples

• after becoming acquainted with someone whose great-grandfather was one of the leading scientists of his day and whose grandmother was a very well known novelist, this author saying: "It's a privilege to meet someone who is descended from such distinguished progenitors."
• a manager telling her employees: "Before we start the brainstorming session, please remember the ground rules: No idea is too outlandish, and no suggestion is out of bounds. Never forget that any single idea could well become the source--the progenitor--of other ideas!"
• Pablo Picasso, one of the progenitors of the abstract movement in 20th-century art; Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc regarded by many to be the progenitor of hip-hop music
• Federal Express founder and CEO Frederick Smith being the progenitor of the overnight package delivery business, having developed the concept in 1965 for a term paper while studying at Yale; John D. Rockefeller, the great oil tycoon, philanthropist, and progenitor of the wealthy Rockefeller family; Vladimir Lenin, the progenitor of the Soviet state
• the Magna Carta, described by some historians as "the birth certificate of freedom" and the progenitor of all modern-day constitutions and laws guaranteeing rights and liberties

© 2014 V.J. Singal
No part of this may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author.

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