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English
Etymology
From Middle English forrenner, foreriner. Calque of Latin praecursor (“one who runs before, a forerunner”). Equivalent to fore- + runner and/or forerun + -er.
Pronunciation
Noun
forerunner (plural forerunners)
- A runner at the front or ahead.
- (sports) 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.
1922, Michael Arlen, “3/1/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days[1]:How meek and shrunken did that haughty Tarmac become as it slunk by the wide circle of asphalt of the yellow sort, that was loosely strewn before the great iron gates of Lady Hall as a forerunner of the consideration that awaited the guests of Rupert, Earl of Kare, […] .
1951 January, Gordon W. Reynolds, “The Female Urethra and Chronic Urethritis”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 1, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 33:Acute infections of the female urethra, which are the forerunners of chronic infections, may be initiated by a number of conditions: Traumatism due to difficult labor, presence of foreign bodies such as calculi, […]
1985, Shiu-hung Luk, “Management of Earthquake Hazard: The Program of Earthquake Forecsting in China, 1966–1976”, in China Geographer Number 12: Environment[2], published 2018, →ISBN, →ISSN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 10:On December 22, 1974, a swarm of earthquakes, the largest event being of magnitude 4.8, occurred 70 km northeast of Haicheng. All these phenomena were considered the forerunners of the major event. Thus, in January 1975, another SSB conference offered a short-term prediction that an earthquake of magnitude 5.5–6 would occur in the Yingkou-Luda-Tantung area in the first six months of 1975 (HESD, 1977).
- A forebear, an ancestor, a predecessor.
Bakelite is a forerunner of today's plastics.
2019 August 16, Daniel Burke, “How Pete Buttigieg found God”, in CNN[3], Atlanta, Ga.: Warner Bros. Discovery, archived from the original on 22 October 2021: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.
2025 April 7, Katie Hunt, “Scientists say they have resurrected the dire wolf”, in CNN[4], Atlanta, Ga.: Warner Bros. Discovery, archived from the original on 9 April 2025:The result is essentially a hybrid species similar in appearance to its extinct forerunner. […] The debate over whether the wolves are a carbon copy of their extinct forerunners misses the point, Shapiro said, adding that the team had been successful in resurrecting the “functional essence” of the dire wolf.
- (philately) A postage stamp used in the time before a region or area issues stamps of its own.
Derived terms
Translations
runner at the front or ahead precursor, harbinger
- Albanian: pararendës (sq) m
- Bulgarian: предшественик (bg) m (predšestvenik), предвестник (bg) m (predvestnik)
- Czech: předchůdce (cs) m
- Finnish: edeltäjä (fi)
- French: prédécesseur (fr) m, avant coureur
- Galician: precursor (gl) m, precursora f
- German: Vorbote (de) m, Vorzeichen (de) n, Vorläufer (de) m, Wegbereiter (de) m, Vorreiter (de) m
- Greek: πρόδρομος (el) m (pródromos), προπομπός (el) m (propompós)
- Ancient Greek: πρόδρομος m (pródromos)
- Hungarian: előjel (hu), előhírnök (hu), előrejelző (hu)
- Latin: praecursor (la) m
- Macedonian: предвесник m (predvesnik)
- Polish: prekursor (pl) m, poprzednik (pl) m
- Portuguese: precursor (pt) m
- Russian: предше́ственник (ru) m (predšéstvennik), предве́стник (ru) m (predvéstnik)
- Spanish: precursor (es)
- Swedish: föregångare (sv) c
- Tagalog: tagapagpauna
- Zulu: imvula (zu) class 9/10
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forebear, ancestor, predecessor References
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