Definition of "predate" [pre•date]

• To mark or designate with a date earlier than the actual one: predated the check. (verb-transitive)
• To precede in time; antedate. (verb-transitive)

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.

• "These early restrictions or economic warfare, to use the Israeli term predate Hamas."
• "A Toys 'R' Us spokesman said today that the cribs in the expanded recall predate those tests."
• "Harry Lee sent this in an e-mail: I have seen this abuse of 'predate' and cringed for a few years running but never from the pen of a senior scientist a presumption or in a first-tier journal."