antecedent
an-tuh-SEE-duntnounMeaning something that comes before and leads to something else
Memory hook the ANT-ecedent: the ANT that goes BEFORE. The first ant marches ahead, and all the others follow behind it; the one that goes before is the antecedent.
The old telegraph was an antecedent of today’s text message.
In context In the sentence “Maya lost her scarf,” the antecedent of the pronoun her is Maya, the word that comes before it and that it points back to.
Similar forerunner, precursor, predecessor
Opposite consequence, result
From Latin antecedere, “to go before”: ante- (before) + cedere (to go).