Definition of "precursor" []

• One that precedes and indicates, suggests, or announces someone or something to come: Colonial opposition to unfair taxation by the British was a precursor of the Revolution. (noun)
• One that precedes another; a forerunner or predecessor: The new principal's precursor was an eminent educator. (noun)
• A biochemical substance, such as an intermediate compound in a chain of enzymatic reactions, from which a more stable or definitive product is formed: a precursor of insulin. (noun)

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.

• "Yet in precisely this jostling of succession, that wintry decline and fall of the precursor is already redeemed by the previous linear drop, despite the attempted brake of the exclamation mark."
• "Then up, straight up, the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter of half a yard."
• "For instance if certain precursor components are too large, too small, too weak, have too much torque, don't fit well with others, then you can't just tweak it for a fix."