forerunner

Leibowitz, who died May 6 at age 89, was a forerunner of the so-called quants, math whizzes who would become major factors in financial markets two decades later.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

She made the leap to the small screen in the 1950s on Children's Television Club, a forerunner of Blue Peter.

From BBC ● May 22, 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

It proved a forerunner of a television revolution.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026

More nuanced and more revealing is Wills’s other remark—that “Everett’s classicism was as much the forerunner of Lincoln’s talk as its foil or contrast.”

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

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

AMD was founded in 1969 by Jerry Sanders and other veterans of Fairchild Semiconductor, a pioneering developer of what were known as integrated circuits, the forerunners of modern chips.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025

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

“Censorship in art has always existed because artists are always forerunners and touch on different themes,” Rodrigo said.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 17, 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