antecessor
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of antecessor
1375–1425; late Middle English antecessour (< Middle French ) < Latin antecessor he who goes before, a predecessor, equivalent to anteced-, variant stem of antecēdere ( see antecede) + -tor -tor; cf. ancestor
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Some traits resemble hominins from Gran Dolina in Atapuerca, often referred to as Homo antecessor, raising the possibility of very early population connections between north-west Africa and southern Europe.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 7, 2026
Patterns of bone-breakage in Homo antecessor, considered the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, suggest that cannibalism goes back a half-million years or more.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2023
Homo antecessor is believed to have been the last common ancestor of modern humans and their extinct Neanderthal cousins, who diverged about 800,000 years ago.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 2, 2023
“There is an archaic human population with facial morphology that resembles modern humans in many ways, and it is a lot older than Jebel Irhoud,” he says of H. antecessor.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2017
But the grantee often took possession of the whole of the land held by the antecessor, as if it were all alike his own.
From William the Conqueror by Edward Augustus Freeman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
