predate
Americanverb
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to affix a date to (a document, paper, etc) that is earlier than the actual date
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to assign a date to (an event, period, etc) that is earlier than the actual or previously assigned date of occurrence
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to be or occur at an earlier date than; precede in time
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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predatesimple
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predatessimple
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have predatedperfect
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has predatedperfect
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am predatingprogressive
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are predatingprogressive
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is predatingprogressive
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have been predatingperfect progressive
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has been predatingperfect progressive
Past
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predatedsimple
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had predatedperfect
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was predatingprogressive
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were predatingprogressive
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had been predatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of predate
Explanation
To predate is to happen or exist before something else. If you move into a house that already has a ghost, the ghost predates you. Boo! If your interest in soul music predates your sister's, you loved it first. When you use predate this way, you can read it as a combination of pre-, "before," and date, "point in time." Another meaning of this verb is "to prey on for food," so you could say that your cat predates the mice that live in your kitchen. This definition stems from predator, from the Latin praedator, "plunderer."
Vocabulary lists containing predate
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.
See Examples For:
But many such laws predate modern prediction markets and haven’t necessarily been tested in court recently.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2026
Their experiments suggest that the attraction to crystals may have deep evolutionary origins that predate modern humans.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026
He has two pensions because they predate the merger of SAG, the film actors' union, and AFTRA, for television actors, in 2012.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
Those tests predate modern technology, as many court reporters now use audio recordings as a backup, says Allie Hall, a certified court reporter who runs a training program with about 800 enrollees currently.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
Because they predate written records of their use and were not known to exist until after the date of the Mary Rose’s sinking, the navigational instruments that were excavated are also extremely important.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
And as we get into subsequent episodes that we’re dealing with now, we see that Robby’s sense of loss predates Louie and his mentor, Adamson, and it goes back to almost an original sin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
The Milan-based fashion house called its results "solid" amid a general slump in the luxury sector that predates the war in the Middle East.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
In fact, the process far predates the modern primary and was long a staple of how parties chose candidates.
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2026
It also predates last year's National Insurance rise.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Use of the word “upset” in this sense predates that race.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
As I reported in 2019, many of those arrangements turned out to be exaggerated or bogus, or predated Trump’s claim.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
The arrival of both ships in America predated the English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1651.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
The cocktail that broke the internet predated the release of his foray into food TV: “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.”
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
Another composition, Moonlight in Hawaii, predated a Hollywood film of the same name by several years.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026
The creditor’s note was purportedly signed by Roan and was dated “Jany, 1921”; this was important, because it indicated that the note predated efforts to obtain the insurance, giving legitimacy to Hale’s claim.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
But there is also a shift predating the AI boom that has quietly persisted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
The play, which takes place in the period predating smartphones, offers a microcosm of American life, not unlike the Grover’s Corners of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” before our brains were all rewired.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
It lost $2 billion in 2001, with the vast majority of its problems predating the Sept. 11 attacks.
From Slate ● Nov. 24, 2025
Survey response rates have dramatically declined External link in recent years, predating the Covid-19 pandemic.
From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2025
Most importantly, alongside seas and rivers rich in seafood and waterfowl, humans set up permanent fishing villages—the first permanent settlements in history, long predating the Agricultural Revolution.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
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.
