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 (UK)

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

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.

   Antonym: successor

   Hyponym: forebear

   Synonym: antecessor (rare) ancestor (rare)[1]

   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, OCLC 558196156:

     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.

2. 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 Usually used to describe an earlier, outdated model.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.

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

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

• decease
• successor

• corepressed, reprocessed

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, 2023
• “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