antecedent

英 [ˌæntɪˈsiːdnt]

美 [ˌæntɪˈsiːdnt]

n. 前事; 前情; 祖先; 先人; 先行词; 先行语
adj. 先前的

复数：antecedents　

BNC.16104 / COCA.16403

牛津词典

noun

前事；前情
a thing or an event that exists or comes before another, and may have influenced it
祖先；先人
the people in sb's family who lived a long time ago
先行词；先行语
a word or phrase to which the following word, especially a pronoun, refers
1. In ‘He grabbed the ball and threw it in the air’, ‘ball’ is the antecedent of ‘it’.
  在He grabbed the ball and threw it in the air一句中，ball是it的先行词。

adj.

N-COUNT 前事；先例；前身
Anantecedentof something happened or existed before it and was similar to it in some way.
1. We shall first look briefly at the historical antecedents of this theory.
  我们首先应大致看一下该理论在历史上的前身。
ADJ 先前的；早先的
Anantecedentthing or event happened or existed before another related thing or event.
1. It was permissible to take account of antecedent legislation.
  允许考虑先前的法律。
N-COUNT 祖先;先人;祖宗
Yourantecedentsare your ancestors.
1. ...a Frenchman with Irish antecedents.
  祖先为爱尔兰人的法国人

noun

the referent of an anaphor
a preceding occurrence or cause or event
someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)
Synonym:ancestorascendantascendentroot
anything that precedes something similar in time
1. phrenology was an antecedent of modern neuroscience
Synonym:forerunner

adj