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antecedent
[ an-tuh-seed-nt ]
adjective
- preceding; prior:
an antecedent event.
Synonyms: preexistent, precursory
Antonyms: subsequent
noun
- a preceding circumstance, event, object, style, phenomenon, etc.
Synonyms: ancestor, forerunner, precursor
Antonyms: successor
- antecedents,
- the history, events, characteristics, etc., of one's earlier life:
Little is known about his birth and antecedents.
- Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause, usually a substantive, that is replaced by a pronoun or other substitute later, or occasionally earlier, in the same or in another, usually subsequent, sentence. In Jane lost a glove and she can't find it, Jane is the antecedent of she and glove is the antecedent of it.
- Mathematics.
- the first term of a ratio; the first or third term of a proportion.
- the first of two vectors in a dyad.
- Logic. the conditional element in a proposition, as “Caesar conquered Gaul,” in “If Caesar conquered Gaul, he was a great general.”
antecedent
/ ˌæntɪˈsiːdənt /
noun
- an event, circumstance, etc, that happens before another
- grammar a word or phrase to which a pronoun refers. In the sentence "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," people is the antecedent of who
- logic the hypothetical clause, usually introduced by "if", in a conditional statement: that which implies the other
- See numeratormaths an obsolescent name for numerator
- denying the antecedentdenying the antecedent logic the fallacy of inferring the falsehood of the consequent of a conditional statement, given the truth of the conditional and the falsehood of its antecedent, as if there are five of them, there are more than four: there are not five, so there are not more than four
adjective
- preceding in time or order; prior
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Other Words From
- an·te·ce·den·tal [an-t, uh, -see-, den, -tl], adjective
- ante·cedent·ly adverb
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Word History and Origins
Origin of antecedent1
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Example Sentences
Even online chat rooms have an antecedent in the exchanges of nineteenth-century American telegraph operators.
If the riots have any comparable antecedent, it's the violence that took over French towns and cities in the fall of 2005.
The nature both of this substance and the antecedent substance from which it is derived is not known.
Spencer tells us that it is 'absolutely antecedent to all relative experience whatever.'
In this line and the next the attributive clauses are separated from the antecedent: see note, l. 2.
Law and antecedent necessity to Mr. Mill are one and the same.
To a scientist there is nothing more in it than antecedent and consequent.
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