predate
Americanverb
-
to affix a date to (a document, paper, etc) that is earlier than the actual date
-
to assign a date to (an event, period, etc) that is earlier than the actual or previously assigned date of occurrence
-
to be or occur at an earlier date than; precede in time
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
predatesimple
-
predatessimple
-
have predatedperfect
-
has predatedperfect
-
am predatingprogressive
-
are predatingprogressive
-
is predatingprogressive
-
have been predatingperfect progressive
-
has been predatingperfect progressive
Past
-
predatedsimple
-
had predatedperfect
-
was predatingprogressive
-
were predatingprogressive
-
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
“In our view, the key to the current policy stance in Norway is that inflation concerns predate this spring’s energy price volatility,” ING foreign exchange strategist Francesco Pesole said in a note.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026
Much of these findings predate the energy shock in 2022, and attribute the hit to uncertainty in the first years after Brexit.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 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
Every initiative of Musk’s that succeeded predates the pandemic.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026
The site has been dated to about 5,000 years old, which predates Stonehenge by 500 years.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
The fact that the source of this expression predates Newton and was picked up by him for his own purposes only reinforces Faulkner’s compelling argument.
From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin
The company is also staring down lawsuits from people and school districts that predated the settlement and are set to go to trial soon, the Times reports.
From Slate ● Aug. 26, 2026
A trend that predated COVID, but the pandemic cemented it.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
Another composition, Moonlight in Hawaii, predated a Hollywood film of the same name by several years.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026
The author emphasizes that by the 1950s, approximately 90% of Cuba’s mines were owned by U.S. companies, demonstrating a longstanding pattern of American economic domination that predated the rise of Fidel Castro and communism.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2026
Games, books, old news programs that predated the sun flares.
From "The Kill Order (Maze Runner, Book Four; Origin)" by James Dashner
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
Google is already the subject of several formal DMA probes, and was hit with a massive 2.95 billion euro fine in September 2025 in an EU competition case predating the digital law.
From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026
On 13 March 2025, bulldozers demolished homes in Gishiri, an indigenous community predating the FCT.
From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2026
Moreover, there was an even more elemental understanding implicitly codified in Philadelphia but actually predating the Constitutional Convention by many years.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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.
