predecessor

• prædecessor (archaic)
• prædecessour (obsolete, rare)
• predecessour (obsolete)

From Middle English predecessour, from Old French predecesseor (“forebear”), from Late Latin praedēcessor, from Latin prae- (“pre-”) + Latin dēcessor (“retiring officer”), from Latin dēcēdō (“I retire, I die”) (English decease).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹiːdɪsɛsə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹiːdɪsɛsɚ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛd.ə.sɛs.ɚ/, /ˈpɹi.də.sɛs.ɚ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

predecessor (plural predecessors)

1. One who precedes; one who has preceded another in any state, position, office, etc.; one whom another follows or comes after, in any office or position.

   Synonyms: antecessor (rare), ancestor (rare)^[1]

   Antonym: successor

   Hyponym: forebear

   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 704:

     "The Northern Heights at last," you say to yourself, hastily closing the carriage window because the Yorkshire coal used by the Eastern Region and its predecessors makes their tunnels more sulphurous than any we know.

1. A model or type of machinery or device which precedes the current (or later) one. Usually used to describe an earlier, outdated model.

   Antonym: successor

   The steam engine was the predecessor of diesel and electric locomotives.

   • 1944 November and December, “Modified G.W.R. "Hall" Class Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 350:

     No. 6959 is painted in the standard wartime black livery and, like its immediate predecessors, does not carry a nameplate, but the words "Hall Class" have been painted on the middle coupled-wheel splasher.

2. (mathematics) A vertex having a directed path to another vertex

• forerunner
• foreganger (archaic, rare)
• ancestor
• antecessor (rare)
• precursor

• corepressed, reprocessed

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [pɾə.ðə.səˈso]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [pɾe.ðe.seˈsoɾ]

predecessor (feminine predecessora, masculine plural predecessors, feminine plural predecessores)

1. (law) preceding

predecessor m (plural predecessors, feminine predecessora)

1. predecessor

• “predecessor” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “predecessor”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “predecessor” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “predecessor” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

predecessor m (plural predecessores, feminine predecessora, feminine plural predecessoras)

1. predecessor (something or someone who precedes)

   Synonym: antecessor

predecessor (feminine predecessora, masculine plural predecessores, feminine plural predecessoras)

1. preceding (occurring before or in front of something else)

   Synonyms: antecessor, anterior

• “predecessor” in Dicionário Aberto based on Novo Diccionário da Língua Portuguesa de Cândido de Figueiredo, 1913
• “predecessor”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2024