Predecessor

//ˈpɹiːdɪsɛsɚ// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 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.

    "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. 2
    something that precedes and indicates the approach of something or someone wordnet
  3. 3
    A model or type of machinery or device which precedes the current (or later) one. Usually used to describe an earlier, outdated model.

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

  4. 4
    one who precedes you in time (as in holding a position or office) wordnet
  5. 5
    A vertex having a directed path to another vertex

Synonyms

All synonyms
forerunnerforerunnerharbingerprecursorancestorantecessor

Example

More examples

"We like the present headmaster better than his predecessor."

Etymology

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).

Related phrases

directed path

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