Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use antecedent in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective, noun

Antecedent means earlier, either in time or in order. Example: “Such development was not de novo; antecedents are apparent.”

Examples of antecedent by meaning

adjectiveEarlier, either in time or in order.

  • an antecedent cause
  • an event antecedent to the Biblical Flood

adjectivePresumptive.

  • an antecedent improbability

nounAn ancestor.

  • The Boston agent added that this clerk was a young man of wholly unquestioned veracity and reliability, of known antecedents and long with the company.1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 3, in The Whisperer in Darkness

More sentences with antecedent

  • Such development was not de novo; antecedents are apparent.From the entry de novo
  • Tregarvon knew nothing of this man's antecedents; of the forehistory of any of them, for that matter.1916, Francis Lynde, After the Manner of Men, page 30. From the entry forehistory
  • In (26b), the antecedent of the empty element is in a non-0-position, so the empty element is trace.2025, Aoun, Joseph, The Status of Movement Rules. From the entry trace
  • The Palpa Valleys have also yielded petroglyphs and geoglyphs, which comprise the direct antecedents of the famous Nasca Lines.2015, Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao, Markus Reindel, Johny Isla, “Paracas Funerary Practices in Palpa, South Coast of Perú”, in Peter Eeckhout…. From the entry geoglyph
  • Future studies can examine its other antecedents and its consequences to both the firm and to the dismissed CEO.2011, Mason Andrew Carpenter, M. Keith Weikel, The Handbook of Research on Top Management Teams, page 382. From the entry dismissed
  • Some researchers have suggested a strong link between the type of antecedent and the chosen alternative of the epicene pronoun.2002 August, Maciej Baranowski, “Current usage of the epicene pronoun in written English”, in Journal of Sociolinguistics, volume 6…. From the entry epicene they
  • Although bush-balladry may be very Australian, it has many antecedents: partly Irish and Scottish songs, partly Rudyard Kipling.1998, Barbara Williams, In Other Words: Interviews with Australian Poets, page 157. From the entry bush-balladry
  • Our Mesozoic antecedents are typified by small size; even the largest of the multis are not larger than a groundhog.1996, Michael Novacek, Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs, page 316. From the entry multi
  • At present the direct antecedents of the sophisticated cast vessels from Erlitou-period tombs excavated at Yanshi near Luoyang remain undiscovered.1987, Jessica Rawson, “Introduction”, in Chinese Bronzes: Art and Ritual, British Museum Publications, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 9. From the entry Yanshi
  • The antecedent of this argument is Gorgias' treatment of language in his On non-being, but inverted and used as an instrument to restore adequationism.2022, Enrico Volpe, Le vie dell'essere: Studi sulla ricezione antica di Parmenide, page 146. From the entry adequationism
  • There are very few of them in the world, and it is very rare to see Drum Horses, whose antecedents are also small in number.2017, Élise Rousseau, Horses of the World, page 55. From the entry drum horse
  • Thus, sensory delay may be the common antecedent event to INS development, although the cause of delay in idiopaths remains a mystery.2011, Chris Harris, “Oculomotor developmental pathology: an ‘evo-devo’ perspective”, in Simon Liversedge, Iain Gilchrist, Stefan Everling…. From the entry idiopath
  • Antecedent pain in the back of the calf or heel may be an indication of prior tendon damage and vulnerability (e.g. tendinitis, tendinosis, tenonitis).2006, British Journal of Hospital Medicine, volume 67, page 476. From the entry tenonitis
  • Four forms of the test of logical inference were used: a pre- and postform for the antecedent task and a pre- and postform for the consequent task.1993, Morton Wagman, Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence, page 31. From the entry postform
  • Cognitive dissonance can be seen as an antecedent condition which leads to activity oriented toward dissonance reduction just as hunger leads to activity oriented toward hunger reduction.1957, Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Row, Peterson and Company, page 3. From the entry cognitive dissonance
  • It is impossible to suppose that a State of Russia's power and antecedents would tolerate a privileged community (of, to Russia, unnational complexion) within the body of the Empire.1905, Joseph Conrad, Notes on Life and Letters. From the entry unnational
  • At the time of our story, the family had been reduced, mostly by deaths of antecedents, centuries before, from the status of grand genrty to that of a grand piano.2011, Jane Austin, “Indifference and Indolence”, in Rejected Works of Famous People, →ISBN, page 7. From the entry neverthemore

Meaning of antecedent

  1. adjective Earlier, either in time or in order.
  2. adjective Presumptive.
  3. noun Any thing that precedes another thing, especially the cause of the second thing.

Full definition of antecedent

Questions about antecedent in a sentence

How do you use antecedent in a sentence?
Antecedent is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Such development was not de novo; antecedents are apparent.”
What is a short sentence with antecedent?
“an antecedent cause”
What does antecedent mean?
Antecedent means earlier, either in time or in order.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antecedent (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use antecedent in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/antecedent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.