FORERUNNERS Synonyms: 54 Similar and Opposite Words

forerunners

noun

plural of forerunner

as in precursors

one that announces or indicates the later arrival of another the return of the swallows is traditionally regarded as a forerunner of spring

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

as in ancestors

something belonging to an earlier time from which something else was later developed enjoyed the demonstration of the simple hand loom that was the forerunner of today's computer-controlled looms

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of forerunners The Norwegian ended his season before the Olympics to further recover from a shoulder injury, but attended the finals as one of the forerunners, who test a course shortly before a race starts. —

ABC News, 22 Mar. 2026 These were the forerunners of today’s robots. —

Munis Raza, Interesting Engineering, 9 Mar. 2026 And these projects may just be the forerunners. —

Andy Sheehan, CBS News, 17 Feb. 2026 With little support for the WHO among Republicans — who control both the House and the Senate — there has been no push from Congress to hold the country to the provision set out by their forerunners. —

Helen Branswell, STAT, 21 Jan. 2026 Like these forerunners, the pleasures of Knight’s A Thousand Blows, which premiered all six episodes of its second season on Hulu Friday, lies in looking back on that thin sliver of time, about 15 years ago, when anachronistic old-timey crime was in vogue. —

Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 9 Jan. 2026 The primacy of a central meeting space can be traced to the Greek Empire with the agora, among other forerunners. —

Jeanne Bonner, CNN Money, 19 Dec. 2025 Compared to their forerunners in the tsarist era, with their party congresses held abroad, their executive committees, and their active recruitment in imperial Russia’s universities, Soviet dissidents remained a comparatively small and informal conglomeration of activists. —

Benjamin Nathans september 24, Literary Hub, 24 Sep. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for forerunners

Noun

Iran also spied on Iraqi positions with rudimentary precursors to drones, an early use of one of the regime’s most effective weapons in its attempt to blockade the strait.

— Sudarsan Raghavan, New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2026
In March, state media reported that China arrested seven people in an operation targeting traffickers of fentanyl precursors, according to the Reuters news agency.

— CBS News, CBS News, 3 Apr. 2026