forerunner
/ˈfɔːrʌnə
/noun
1A person or thing that precedes the coming or development of someone or something else: the ice safe was a forerunner of today’s refrigerator...
- The suburb is more of an ad hoc social development, a forerunner of the gated community, built around the principle of exclusion.
- Mr Freeman said some people were opposed to anything they saw as a forerunner of development.
- Should we pity a team that was one of the forerunners in the development of the slowdown, hard-nosed, tough-defending style that bored a generation?
Synonyms
predecessor, precursor, antecedent, ancestor, forebear;
prototype
rare primogenitor
2A sign or warning of something to come: overcast mornings are the sure forerunners of steady rain...
- Charlotte writes: ‘The heath is in full bloom now - I have waited and watched for its purple signal as the forerunner of your coming’.
- Was it perhaps a warning about female intemperance, an early forerunner of Mother's Ruin?
- The Buddha said, ‘Just as the dawn is the forerunner and the first indication of the rising sun, so is right view the forerunner and the first indication of wholesome states.’
Synonyms
herald, harbinger, usher, advance guard;
precursor, prelude;
sign, signal, warning, token, portent, omen, augury
2.1 archaic An advance messenger.But before the storm sinks its teeth into the sky overhead, it sends a forerunner, a messenger to let everyone know it is on its way - the wind.