# predecessor

Pronunciation: US say "PRED-uh-ses-ur" /ˈpɹɛd.ə.sɛs.ɚ/; UK say "PREE-di-ses-uh" /ˈpɹiːdɪsɛsə(ɹ)/

## Noun

1. Someone who held a state, position, or office before the person who later took it over.
   - Simple: The person who held a job or position before the one who came after.
   - _The incoming senator inherited several stalled bills from her predecessor._
   - _Unlike his predecessors, the new coach favored a defensive style of play._
2. An earlier, now-outdated model of machinery or a device that came before the current version.
   - Simple: An older model of a machine or device that came before a newer one.
   - _Reviewers praised the camera for fixing the autofocus issues that plagued its predecessor._
   - _The latest tractor hauls heavier loads than any of its predecessors._
3. In graph theory, a vertex from which a directed path leads to another given vertex.
   - Simple: In graph math, a point that has an arrow-path leading to another point.
   - _In a directed graph, any vertex with a path leading to the target is a predecessor of it._
   - _The algorithm records each predecessor of a node before it begins processing that node._

## Origin

From Middle English predecessour, from Old French predecesseor ('forebear'), from Late Latin praedēcessor. This came from Latin prae- ('pre-') plus dēcessor ('retiring officer'), which derived from dēcēdō ('I retire, I die'): the same root as English 'decease.'

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/predecessor (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).