Dictionary

antecessor en · NOUN

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English antecessour, from Anglo-Norman antecessour, Middle French antecesseur, or their etymon Latin antecessor, a compound of ante + cedo + -tor; thus a doublet of ancestor.

Meanings

1. (archaic) A person or thing that precedes or goes before.
   • Yet who says, I have faith in the existence of George II., as his present Majesty’s antecessor and grandfather? 1810, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Notes on a Barrister’s Hints on Evangelical Preaching”, in Henry Nelson Coleridge, editor, The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, London: W. Pickering, published 1839, page 343:
   • 1671, Joseph Glanvill, A Præfatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe, London: J. Collins, p. 57, […] the Waldenses[,] Antecessors of the Protestants
   • The Book of Change in the general form it is known today [sic] is approximately three thousand years old. It is the third in a series of such texts, its antecessors supposed by some scholars to have been composed six and twelve hundred years earlier. 1994, Thomas Cleary, The Human Element: A Course in Resourceful Thinking, Boston: Shambhala, Introduction, pp. 14-15:
   • This, then, is their horrid counsel and device—that each one of their gods should kill his antecessor. 1890, Grant Allen, chapter 23, in The Great Taboo, London: Chatto & Windus, page 209:
2. (archaic) A person from whom one is descended.
   • At his mother’s knee he had heard of the exploits of her family, which boasted among its antecessors a surgeon on Nelson’s ship at Trafalgar. 1992, Lynne Bowen, chapter 1, in Muddling Through: The Remarkable Story of the Barr Colonists, Vancouver: Douglas & MacIntyre, page 5:
   • […] promises made to Abraham, and to other antecessors of the Iewes, 1614, Thomas Wilson, A Commentarie upon the Most Divine Epistle of S. Paul to the Romanes, London, Chapter 11, Dialogue 13, p. 926:
   • […] some, hath iudged wrongfully As in reproche, of our country Deniyng playne, moste noble Brute Our antecessor our stocke and our frute. 1547, Arthur Kelton, A chronycle with a genealogie declaryng that the Brittons and Welshemen are linealiye dyscended from Brute, London: Richard Grafton:

Forms

Antonyms

descendant · successor

Synonyms

ancestor · precursor · predecessor

Translations (1)

es antecesor (Translations)