PREDECESSOR

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Something that precedes and indicates the approach of something or someone

Synonyms:

forerunner; harbinger; herald; precursor; predecessor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("predecessor" is a kind of...):

indicant; indication (something that serves to indicate or suggest)

Sense 2

Meaning:

One who precedes you in time (as in holding a position or office)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("predecessor" is a kind of...):

forerunner; precursor (a person who goes before or announces the coming of another)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "predecessor"):

forefather (person from an earlier time who contributed to the tradition shared by some group)

Derivation:

precede (be the predecessor of)

Credits

Context examples:

“You see, my dear Watson,”—he propped his test-tube in the rack, and began to lecture with the air of a professor addressing his class—“it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself.”

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy lumber, mostly dating from the times of the surgeon who was Jekyll’s predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the fall of a perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed up the entrance.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The rare version of TomLoxC was found in only 2 percent of older or heirloom cultivated large tomato varieties, although the version was present in 91 percent of currant-sized wild tomatoes, primarily Solanum pimpinellifolium, the wild predecessor of the cultivated tomato.

(Tomato Pan-Genome Makes Bringing Flavor Back Easier, Agricultural Research Service)

A little way down the room I saw the black face and woolly head of Bill Richmond, in a purple-and-gold footman’s livery—destined to be the predecessor of Molineaux, Sutton, and all that line of black boxers who have shown that the muscular power and insensibility to pain which distinguish the African give him a peculiar advantage in the sports of the ring.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I thought about my predecessor, who had died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as to live, and not bother me with his decease.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

After many adventures which I need not describe, and after traveling a distance which I will not mention, in a direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which has never been described, nor, indeed, visited save by my unfortunate predecessor.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“There are three methods, by which a man may rise to be chief minister. The first is, by knowing how, with prudence, to dispose of a wife, a daughter, or a sister; the second, by betraying or undermining his predecessor; and the third is, by a furious zeal, in public assemblies, against the corruptions of the court. But a wise prince would rather choose to employ those who practise the last of these methods; because such zealots prove always the most obsequious and subservient to the will and passions of their master. That these ministers, having all employments at their disposal, preserve themselves in power, by bribing the majority of a senate or great council; and at last, by an expedient, called an act of indemnity” (whereof I described the nature to him), “they secure themselves from after-reckonings, and retire from the public laden with the spoils of the nation.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of my predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal all!