Word.ws English Dictionary

antecessor

antecessor noun: a person or thing that precedes or goes before.

Noun

antecessor (plural antecessors)

  1. (archaic) A person or thing that precedes or goes before.
    • […] the Waldenses[,] Antecessors of the Protestants1671, Joseph Glanvill, A Præfatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe, London: J. Collins, p. 57
    • Yet who says, I have faith in the existence of George II., as his present Majesty’s antecessor and grandfather?1810, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Notes on a Barrister’s Hints on Evangelical Preaching”, in Henry Nelson Coleridge, editor, The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, London: W. Pickering...
    Antonyms:
    successor
  2. (archaic) A person from whom one is descended.
    • […] some, hath iudged wrongfully
      As in reproche, of our country
      Deniyng playne, moste noble Brute
      Our antecessor our stocke and our frute.1547, Arthur Kelton, A chronycle with a genealogie declaryng that the Brittons and Welshemen are linealiye dyscended from Brute, London: Richard Grafton
    • […] promises made to Abraham, and to other antecessors of the Iewes,1614, Thomas Wilson, A Commentarie upon the Most Divine Epistle of S. Paul to the Romanes, London, Chapter 11, Dialogue 13, p. 926
    Synonyms:
    ancestor
    Antonyms:
    descendant

Examples of antecessor in a sentence

  • This, then, is their horrid counsel and device—that each one of their gods should kill his antecessor.1890, Grant Allen, chapter 23, in The Great Taboo, London: Chatto & Windus, page 209:
  • It is the third in a series of such texts, its antecessors supposed by some scholars to have been composed six and twelve hundred years earlier.1994, Thomas Cleary, The Human Element: A Course in Resourceful Thinking, Boston: Shambhala, Introduction, pp. 14-15:
  • At his mother’s knee he had heard of the exploits of her family, which boasted among its antecessors a surgeon on Nelson’s ship at Trafalgar.1992, Lynne Bowen, chapter 1, in Muddling Through: The Remarkable Story of the Barr Colonists, Vancouver: Douglas & MacIntyre, page 5:

Synonyms of antecessor

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of antecessor

Forms of antecessor

pluralantecessors
alternative form (obsolete)antecessour

Origin of antecessor

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.

Questions about antecessor

What does antecessor mean?
Antecessor means a person or thing that precedes or goes before.
How do you use antecessor in a sentence?
This, then, is their horrid counsel and device—that each one of their gods should kill his antecessor.
What part of speech is antecessor?
Antecessor is a noun.
What is the plural of antecessor?
The plural of antecessor is antecessors.

Words near antecessor in the dictionary

  1. antecedently
  2. antecedents
  3. antecedes
  4. anteceding
  5. antecession
  6. antecessor
  7. antecessors
  8. antecessour
  9. antecessours
  10. antechamber
  11. antechambered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antecessor (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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