Word.ws English Dictionary

predecease

/ˌpɹiːdəˈsiːs/

predecease noun: the death of one person or thing before another.

Noun

predecease (plural predeceases)

  1. The death of one person or thing before another.
    • ‘Private: for the hands of J. G. Utterson alone and in case of his predecease to be destroyed unread,’ so it was emphatically superscribed; and the lawyer to behold the contents.1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Remarkable Incident of Dr. Lanyon”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, pages 59–60

Verb

predecease (third-person singular simple present predeceases, present participle predeceasing, simple past and past participle predeceased)

  1. (transitive) To die sooner than.
    • Husbands usually predecease their wives.
    • Frederick, Prince of Wales, predeceased his father and never became king.

Antonyms of predecease

Forms of predecease

Noun
pluralpredeceases
Verb
third-person singular presentpredeceases
present participlepredeceasing
past participlepredeceased
pastpredeceased

Origin of predecease

From pre- + decease.

Words formed from predecease

Words that rhyme with predecease

31 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about predecease

What does predecease mean?
Predecease means the death of one person or thing before another.
What part of speech is predecease?
Predecease can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce predecease?
Predecease is pronounced /ˌpɹiːdəˈsiːs/.
What is the plural of predecease?
The plural of predecease is predeceases.

Words near predecease in the dictionary

  1. predebs
  2. predebutante
  3. predebutantes
  4. predecarboxylation
  5. predecay
  6. predecease
  7. predeceased
  8. predeceaser
  9. predeceasers
  10. predeceases
  11. predeceasing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: predecease (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-predecease.wav.

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