antecedent
nounEtymology From Middle English antecedent, borrowed from Old French antecedent, from Latin antecēdēns (“going before”), from antecēdō (“to precede; excel; surpass”).
7 senses
- 1Any thing that precedes another thing, especially the…
- 2An ancestor.
- 3A word, phrase or clause referred to by a pronoun or…
- 4The conditional part of a hypothetical proposition, i.e.…
- 5The first of two subsets of a sequent, consisting of all…
- 6The first term of a ratio, i.e. the term a in the ratio…
- 7Previous principles, conduct, history, etc.
Any thing that precedes another thing, especially the cause of the second thing.
An 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:
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences A word, phrase or clause referred to by a pronoun or other pro-form.
- [W]hereas it might seem orderly that, as who is appropriated to persons, so that should have been appropriated to things […] the antecedent of that is often personal1926, H. W. Fowler, “that rel. pron.”, in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, reprint of the first edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 634, column 2:
- One such condition can be formulated in terms of the c-command relation defined in (9) above: the relevant condition is given in (16) below: (16) C-COMMAND CONDITION ON ANAPHORS An anaphor must have an appropriate c-commanding antecedent1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 117:
Human sciences, Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy, Sciences The conditional part of a hypothetical proposition, i.e. p→q, where p is the antecedent, and q is the consequent.
Human sciences, Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy, Sciences The first of two subsets of a sequent, consisting of all the sequent's formulae which are valuated as true.
Mathematics, Sciences The first term of a ratio, i.e. the term a in the ratio a:b, the other being the consequent.
In plural Previous principles, conduct, history, etc.
- Synonyms
- precedent, precursor, ascendant, ascendent, forebear, forefather, forerunner, predecessor, progenitor
- Antonyms
- consequent, succedent, anaphor
- Derived terms
- last antecedent rule
- Related terms
- juxtaposition
- Holonyms
- argument form, in logic, referent