ANTECEDENT definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary (2025)

An antecedent of something happened or existed before it and was similar to it in some way.

[formal]

We shall first look briefly at the historical antecedents of this theory.

An antecedent thing or event happened or existed before another related thing or event.

[formal]

It was permissible to take account of antecedent legislation.

[formal]

...a Frenchman with Irish antecedents.

1.

2. grammar

3. logic

4. mathematics an obsolescent name for numerator (sense 1)

5. See denying the antecedent

6.

1.

2.

any happening or thing prior to another

3.

anything logically preceding

4. [pl.]

5. Grammar

the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers

“man” is the antecedent of “who” in “the man who spoke”

6. Logic

7. Ancient Mathematics

see also consequent

1.

preceding; prior

an antecedent event

2.

a preceding circumstance, event, object, style, phenomenon, etc

3. See antecedents

4.Grammar

a word, phrase, or clause, usually a substantive, that is replaced by a pronoun or other substitute later, or occasionally earlier, in the same or in another, usually subsequent, sentence. In Jane lost a glove and she can't find it, Jane is the antecedent of she and glove is the antecedent of it

5.Math

6.Logic

the conditional element in a proposition, as “ Caesar conquered Gaul,” in “If Caesar conquered Gaul, he was a great general”