antedating

Verb

antedate (third-person singular simple present antedates, present participle antedating, simple past and past participle antedated)

1. To occur before an event or time; to exist further back in time.
   • I suppose you know all about the fearful myths antedating the coming of man to the earth—the Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu cycles—which are hinted at in the Necronomicon.1931, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, chapter 2, in The Whisperer in Darkness

   Synonyms:

   predate, precede, preexist

   Antonyms:

   postdate

2. To assign a date to a document or action earlier than the actual date.
   • Tomorrow when you leav’st, what wilt thou say? / Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?1633, John Donne, Woman's Constancy

   Synonyms:

   backdate, foredate, predate

   Antonyms:

   postdate, overdate

3. To find earlier citational evidence for a term.
   • Furthermore, while OED entries are generally regarded as a good indication of when terms were first used in English, for 5 of the 7 terms the present research has been able to antedate OED’s earliest attestations, usually by a decade or more.2017 January, James Lambert, “A multitude of “lishes”: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, volume 38, number 3, →DOI, →ISSN

See all 5 meanings of antedate