pl. Chiefly northern. For forms see ELDER. [f. FORE- pref. + ELDER(S. Cf. ON. foreldrar in same sense (Da. forædre, Sw. föräldrar parents).] Ancestors, progenitors.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 18361 (Cott.).
| Þou has þam drund and don forfare, | |
| Als þou til ur for-eildres suare. |
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., IX. xvii. 6. As þare For-elderis ware slane to Dede.
1525. Q. Marg., in M. A. E. Wood, Lett. R. & Illustr. Ladies (1852), I. 371–2. They may recover his favour, and live under him as his subjects, as their foreelders (forefathers) has done in time past.
1627. Sanderson, Serm., I. 265. Our Romish Catholiques often twit us with our fore-elders. [What, say they, were they not all down-right Papists?]
1710. Bp. Nicolson, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. I. III. 359. They fairly avow the principles on which their fore-elders built the gude wark of reformation, which (ye ken) were not over-burthen’d with the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance.
1843. The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, II. 349. The former must have been visited by the fore-elders of mankind earlier than Egypt.
1876. Mr. Gray & his Neighbours, I. 26. John Dannay lived upon his own land, as his fore-elders had done from time immemorial.
