Definition of "precede" []

• To come, exist, or occur before in time. (verb-transitive)
• To come before in order or rank; surpass or outrank. (verb-transitive)
• To be in a position in front of; go in advance of. (verb-transitive)
• To preface; introduce: preceded her lecture with a funny anecdote. (verb-transitive)
• To come or go before in time, order, rank, or position. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The poured-out bottle might suggest that he thought of me as a pocket-sized prohibitionist minister, a vocation he respected; but the nickname may precede my fears."
• "Christ; wherefore Gregory says in a homily (Hom. vii in Evang.) that therefore did John baptize, "that, being consistent with his office of precursor, as he had preceded our Lord in birth, so he might also by baptizing precede Him who was about to baptize.""
• "The last clause seems at first view, to refer to the words which immediately precede, which is to understand our Savior as aggravating the guilt of those who delivered him to Pilate, from the consideration of Pilate's power having been derived from above."