different between begetter vs predecessor

English

Etymology

beget +? -er

Noun

begetter (plural begetters)

1. A procreator; one who begets.
   • 1681, John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, Dublin, p. 17,^[1]

     Our fond Begetters, who would never die,

     Love but themselves in their posteritie.

   • 1917, Thomas Hardy, “The Pedigree” in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses, London: Macmillan, p. 63,^[2]

     It was a mirror now,

     And in it a long perspective I could trace

     Of my begetters, dwindling backward each past each

     All with the family look,

     Whose names had since been inked down in their place

     On the recorder’s book,

     Generation and generation of my mien, and build, and brow.

2. (figuratively) An originator; a creator.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Shake-speares Sonnets, London: Thomas Thorpe, Dedication,^[3]

     To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets Mr. W. H. all happinesse and that eternitie promised by our ever-living poet wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth.

   • 1911, Saki, “Tobermory” in The Chronicles of Clovis, London: John Lane, 1912, p. 30,^[4]

     He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals.

   • 1980, Doris Lessing, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 3,^[5]

     Rumours are the begetters of gossip. Even more are they the begetters of song.

   • 2015, Ayaz Amir, “So what else should Christians do?” The News International, 17 March, 2015,^[6]

     As the sponsor and begetter of extremism, it was only the army which could take on religious extremism along the north-western marches and the ‘secular’ brand of terrorism down south in Karachi.

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• prædecessor (archaic)
• prædecessour (obsolete, rare)
• predecessour (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin praedecessor.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?i?d?s?s?(?)/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /?p?i?d?s?s?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?p??d.?.s?s.?/, /?p?i.d?.s?s.?/

Noun

predecessor (plural predecessors)

1. One who precedes; one who has preceded another in any state, position, office, etc.; one whom another follows or comes after, in any office or position.
2. A model or type of machinery or device which precedes the current one. Usually used to describe an earlier, outdated model.

   The steam engine was the predecessor of diesel and electric locomotives.

3. (mathematics) A vertex having a directed path to another vertex

Synonyms

• forerunner
• foreganger (archaic, rare)

Antonyms

• (one who precedes): successor
• (machinery or device which precedes): successor

Translations

Anagrams

• corepressed, reprocessed

Catalan

Noun

predecessor m (plural predecessors, feminine predecessora)

1. predecessor

Further reading

• “predecessor” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “predecessor” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “predecessor” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “predecessor” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Portuguese

Noun

predecessor m (plural predecessores, feminine predecessora, feminine plural predecessoras)

1. predecessor (something or someone who precedes)

   Synonym: antecessor

Adjective

predecessor m (feminine singular predecessora, masculine plural predecessores, feminine plural predecessoras, comparable)

1. preceding (occurring before or in front of something else)

   Synonyms: antecessor, anterior