- [countable] (formal)
a thing or an event that exists or comes before another, and may have influenced it 前事;前情 - antecedents[plural] (formal)
the people in somebody’s family who lived a long time ago synonym ancestor, forebearTopics Family and relationshipsc2祖先;先人 - [countable] (
grammar )语法 a word or phrase to which the following word, especially a pronoun, refers 先行词;先行语
Word Originlate Middle English: from Old French or from Latin antecedent- ‘going before’, from antecedere, from ante ‘before’ + cedere ‘go’.