1854 A. R. Scoble tr. F. P. G. Guizot Hist. Oliver Cromwell & Eng. Commonw. 341 The letter..should be predated [Fr. antidatée], so that it might be said that it had been written before the news was received that the Parliament had excluded the posterity of the late king from the throne.

1874 W. Mathews Getting on in World xx. 335 The result of all this excitement is, by keeping the mind perpetually on the rack, to sap all the foundations of health, and pre-date old age.

1875 Presbyterian Q. & Princeton Rev. Apr. 323 Some of Ephraim's sons made an attempt to predate the fulfilment of God's purpose and Jacob's prophecy.

1902 Edinb. Rev. Apr. 486 The tendency—found in all early as well as modern writings—to pre-date the origin of empire.

1931 Rev. Eng. Stud. 7 35 Clearly these dates are mere fiction and Godwin could post- or pre-date them as he cared.

1980 Times 1 Apr. 17/6 He decided to overcome this discrepancy by pre-dating the case to ‘the end of the eighties’, unfortunately forgetting to alter the historical part of the story to match.

1889 Notes & Queries 7th Ser. 7 486/1 The Bonnington, or Law-day oak, is not a boundary tree, but it predates the times of the Tudors.

1898 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 7 Nov. 6/7 Its ocean waters..have been, more especially in the days predating steamers, the scene of numerous shipwrecks.

1931 Geogr. Jrnl. 77 509 These older deposits had been covered by lavas which I thought of considerable antiquity and which must pre-date the arrival of man.

1951 E. Bowen Shelbourne i. 14 The hotel's history as a hotel predates the building we see today.

1992 Independent 24 Aug. 15/7 She is including contemporary quotations and illustrations. Some of her references predate any in the OED.

2005 Financial Times (Nexis) 14 Nov. 17 The first Enterprise Week was held only a year ago. But..it was predated by some years by economic policies intended to encourage such a culture.

1941 [implied in: Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 46 491 Every predated organism fights to prevent its being gobbled up by the predator. (at predated adj.)].

1956 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 145 313 Many larvae..were heavily predated by cuckoos.

1977 New Scientist 27 Oct. 220/3 The eggs of many species of frogs are predated by many species of vertebrates and invertebrates.

1994 Nature Conservancy May 18/2 People, who scare turtles, also bring litter, which..also brings more raccoons to predate nests.

2002 J. Cohen & I. Stewart Evolving Alien vii. 154 These could then be grazed by specialised protozoa (ciliates like Paramecium..), which were then predated by larger organisms.

1974 Trout & Salmon Mar. 50/2 It is hoped that the stock of trout will predate sufficiently to minimise the problem [of coarse fish].

1977 Field 13 Jan. 47/1 Man is a predator... To predate in person, instead of by proxy, is not unnatural.

1995 Daily Tel. 12 Aug. (Weekend Suppl.) 3/4 An awful lot of things use dead wood... They eat it, hide in it or use it to predate on dead wood invertebrates.