Word.ws English Dictionary

pre-date

pre-date is the alternative form of predate.

Meaning of predate

Verb (1)

predate (third-person singular simple present predates, present participle predating, simple past and past participle predated)

  1. To designate a date earlier than the actual one; to move a date, appointment, event, or period of time to an earlier point (contrast "postdate".)
    Synonyms:
    antedate
  2. (transitive) To exist or to occur before something else; to antedate.
    • The Chinese use of Pascal's Triangle predates its discovery by Blaise Pascal.
    Synonyms:
    antedate

Verb (2)

predate (third-person singular simple present predates, present participle predating, simple past and past participle predated)

  1. (ambitransitive) To prey upon something.
    Synonyms:
    depredate, antedate

See all 4 meanings of predate

Forms of pre-date

Verb
third-person singular presentpre-dates
present participlepre-dating
past participlepre-dated
pastpre-dated
Noun
pluralpre-dates

Origin of pre-date

From pre- + date.

Questions about pre-date

What is pre-date the alternative form of?
Pre-date is the alternative form of predate.

Words near pre-date in the dictionary

  1. pre-creative
  2. pre-crime
  3. pre-crimes
  4. pre-cruise
  5. pre-cum
  6. pre-date
  7. pre-dated
  8. pre-dates
  9. pre-dating
  10. pre-dead
  11. pre-debate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pre-date (page history and authors); predate (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “pre-date.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pre-date. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.