Antecessor

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person or thing that precedes or goes before. archaic

    "1671, Joseph Glanvill, A Præfatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe, London: J. Collins, p. 57, […] the Waldenses[,] Antecessors of the Protestants"

  2. 2
    A person from whom one is descended. archaic

    "[…] some, hath iudged wrongfully As in reproche, of our country Deniyng playne, moste noble Brute Our antecessor our stocke and our frute."

Synonyms

All synonyms
ancestorancientelderprecursorpredecessor

Example

More examples

"1671, Joseph Glanvill, A Præfatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe, London: J. Collins, p. 57, […] the Waldenses[,] Antecessors of the Protestants"

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.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.