precursor
noun
ˈprē-ˌkər-
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Precursor Has Latin Roots
With its prefix pre-, meaning "before", a precursor is literally a "forerunner", and in fact forerunner first appeared as the translation of the Latin praecursor. But the two words function a little differently today. A forerunner may simply come before another thing, but a precursor generally paves the way for something. So, for example, the Office of Strategic Services in World War II was the immediate precursor of today's Central Intelligence Agency, while the blues music of the 1930s and 1940s was only one of the precursors of the rock and roll of today.
Examples of precursor in a Sentence
Sudarsan Raghavan, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2026
Right now, huge volumes of unusually warm water are spreading under the ocean surface from the Western to the Eastern tropical Pacific, where that water slowly rises to the surface in a clear precursor to El Niño.
—Andrew Freedman, CNN Money, 7 Apr. 2026
In September, Cervantes filed a government claim against the city, a necessary precursor to taking further legal action.
—Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2026
Those precursor missions, including the still-operating Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), have more instruments in their scientific toolkits than Artemis II.
—Stephen Clark, ArsTechnica, 7 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for precursor
Cite this Entry
“Precursor.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precursor. Accessed 8 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
precursor
noun
ˈprē-ˌkər-
Medical Definition
precursor
noun
ˈprē-ˌ
