Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that precedes, as in time; a predecessor.
  • noun An ancestor; a forebear.
  • noun One that comes before and indicates the approach of another; a harbinger.
  • noun A warning sign or symptom.
  • noun One who skis a course before the beginning of a race.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who or that which foreruns; an annunciator; a harbinger: as, John the Baptist was the forerunner of Christ.
  • noun An ancestor or predecessor.
  • noun A prognostic; a premonitory token; a sign foreshowing something to follow: as, popular tumults are the forerunners of revolution.
  • noun Nautical, a piece of bunting or other material inserted in a log-line to mark the point at which the glass must be turned.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A messenger sent before to give notice of the approach of others; a harbinger; a sign foreshowing something; a prognostic.
  • noun obsolete A predecessor; an ancestor.
  • noun (Naut.) A piece of rag terminating the log line.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a runner at the front or ahead
  • noun a precursor or harbinger, a warning ahead
  • noun a forebear, an ancestor, a predecessor
  • noun philately a postage stamp used in the time before a region or area issues stamps of its own

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person who goes before or announces the coming of another
  • noun something that precedes and indicates the approach of something or someone
  • noun anything that precedes something similar in time

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

fore + runner

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