How to Use antecedent in a Sentence

antecedent

noun

• One problem in the creation of a new East German canon was the lack of antecedents.
  — Joanna Biggs, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2023
• Some of the nine songs on the recording have literary antecedents.
  — Martin Johnson, WSJ, 13 Mar. 2018
• King is well aware that the series’ antecedent is an uphill climb.
  — Abraham Riesman, Vulture, 18 Mar. 2021
• The second is is the verb for the pronoun who, whose antecedent in this sentence is people.
  — Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Mar. 2021
• All this mistrust, of course, has its own origins and antecedents.
  — James Poniewozik, New York Times, 18 Mar. 2020
• The infrastructure of 5G costs far more than that of its antecedents.
  — The Economist, 28 Mar. 2018
• But our family home did have its own antecedent to the home office.
  — Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, The New Republic, 3 Aug. 2020
• Now, with the good wishes of all estates, Mr. Rankin has completed the work of his esteemed antecedent.
  — Tom Nolan, WSJ, 29 July 2022
• But he was also steeped in its antecedents: Toho monster films, Voltron, decades of sci-fi.
  — Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 22 Mar. 2018
• In the years since the profile and the antecedent divorce, Jolie has continued to struggle to find her audience.
  — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 24 Oct. 2022
• The most important of of Smaug’s antecedents was Fafnir, a treasure-hoarding dragon from a Norse epic.
  — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 21 Sep. 2017
• The traits that endeared him to the movement have clear historical antecedents.
  — Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 23 Feb. 2018
• Surely the random choice was not made in zero time, without any antecedents.
  — Quanta Magazine, 22 Nov. 2019
• Yet at the same time, Lena represents a genuine antecedent to the protagonists of the mixed Asian novel.
  — Vulture, 27 Sep. 2022
• In the mid 18th century, the spire, an early antecedent of the one that collapsed last week, was removed because of wind damage.
  — Klara Glowczewska, Town & Country, 19 Apr. 2019
• But an antecedent question should be: What in the first place is causing these people to migrate thousands of miles, often at the risk of their own lives?
  — Sami J. Karam, National Review, 21 Aug. 2017
• Grimm’s female figurines have grown up, found their own voice, and are much less delicate than their antecedents.
  — Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 Dec. 2017
• Bloom’s view of the body almost as a trap, a disguise to be ravaged and riven, the better to see through it, had plenty of antecedents in European art.
  — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 31 July 2019
• What is the antecedent to this entity that Moore, Olbermann, and Biden are referring to? Democrats?
  — Isaac Schorr, National Review, 4 Mar. 2021
• In the end, no modern politician is a perfect reincarnation of his or her antecedents.
  — Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 23 Mar. 2017
• The principal problem seems to be a deeper antecedent offense.
  — Joan Biskupic, CNN, 24 Oct. 2021
• This is the genesis and antecedent of Porsche’s historical evolution that would follow, and the oldest car to wear the Porsche name.
  — Neil Vigdor, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2019
• But Davis’ cadenza was not so much a jazz statement as a linkage between jazz and its antecedents in ancient Africa.
  — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 15 June 2018
• The royal family disapproved of him marrying a girl whose antecedents weren’t known, and so she was chased off.
  — Shalini Dore, Variety, 4 May 2023
• Trump’s assassination of Soleimani, of course, has its own antecedents.
  — Osita Nwanevu, The New Republic, 8 Jan. 2020
• Certain conservatives posit that the lack of God in public schools is a direct antecedent to school shootings.
  — Alex Siquig, GQ, 1 Mar. 2018
• Quichotte is deranged by his constant exposure to the junk culture of today, just as his antecedent, Don Quixote, was made crazy by the junk culture of his time.
  — Deborah Treisman, The New Yorker, 22 July 2019
• Or perhaps a better antecedent is Woodstock ’99, the 30-year anniversary event that was the opposite of the original fest.
  — Allegra Frank, Vox, 1 Aug. 2019
• At any moment, elements of these antecedents may erupt through the skin of the modern tale, as if to say that the current crisis for young black men is a tragedy too big for one era to encompass.
  — Jesse Green, New York Times, 18 June 2018
• Joke’s on me — there is no reference point, no explicit antecedent.
  — Murray Whyte, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Aug. 2022

Last Updated: 9 May 2024