forerunner

Tim Burton’s stylish 1989 movie, “Batman,” wasn’t only a forerunner of the superhero films to come in the following decades.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

Among the proclamations of the first French republic was an end to slavery in its island possessions—a forerunner of wider abolition.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026

The WTO's forerunner was responsible for negotiating the global agreements that reduced tariffs on trade in goods that helped bring about post-WWII prosperity.

From Barron's ● May 6, 2026

"She was the forerunner of Take Two - without her, we could never have made it as we did," Richardson told The Hollywood Reporter.

From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2026

Mama Tataba’s job, we were surprised to learn, was to live with us and earn a small stipend by doing the same work she’d done for our forerunner in the Kilanga Mission, Brother Fowles.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Margaret and Alice are the forerunners of Lucy and Ethel, and Shakespeare’s comedy, written expressly to entertain, gives us a sense of what an Elizabethan-era situation comedy might look like.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

Some private credit is packaged into collateralized loan obligations, or CLOs, but they are far smaller and less complex than their subprime forerunners.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026

For our fruit-loving forerunners a few million years before we figured out cooking, a little squish was an easy cue that our food was ready to eat.

From Salon ● Feb. 10, 2024

The first run was delayed for 12 minutes after one of the forerunners, who test the course before the first racer starts, crashed and needed medical attention for an apparent right arm injury.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 28, 2023

The two states, Wari and Tiwanaku, were probably the greatest of the Inkas’ forerunners, and certainly the predecessors from whom they took the most.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann