Word of the Day:
forerunner
What It Means
A runner at the front or ahead.
By extension, a non-competitor who leads out the competitors on to the circuit, or who runs/rides the course prior to competitor trials, usually testing or checking the way.
A precursor or harbinger, a warning ahead.
Bakelite is a forerunner of today's plastics.
Forerunner in Context
“The cathedral is part of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism. Considered the "church of the establishment" for much of American history -- 11 US presidents have been Episcopalian -- the church of late has been known as a forerunner of progressive theology.”
Did You Know?
From Middle English forrenner, foreriner. Calque of Latin praecursor (“one who runs before, a forerunner”). Equivalent to fore- + runner and/or forerun + -er.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: forerunner (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “forerunner.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forerunner. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
