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

And in a section about advances in structural engineering, the museum presents one of its signature possessions—the 1878, 9-foot-high forerunner model of the Statue of Liberty.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 10, 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

Having Albert Brooks as a best friend likely molded his style too; both were forerunners of a school of comedy that merged a naturalistic, conversational delivery with an absurdist sensibility.

From Salon ● Dec. 21, 2025

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

The flames would then be spread across the country for about 1,200 forerunners to relay.

From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2024

In other words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts.

From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling