Meaning & use
antecedents
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The people, events, or things that came before someone or something, especially ancestors or a person's past history and background.
See it in a sentence
The biography traces the singer's antecedents back to a small village in Ireland.
Investigators reviewed the suspect's antecedents before deciding whether to grant bail.
A note on using this word
In grammar, "antecedent" also names the noun a pronoun refers back to, as in "Maria forgot her keys," where "Maria" is the antecedent of "her."
Words with a similar meaning
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Words with an opposite meaning
Another way to use it
2. noun
In grammar, the word or phrase that a pronoun refers back to.
In the sentence "The dog wagged its tail," "dog" is the antecedent of "its."
Make it your own
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