forerun

English

Etymology

fore- +‎ run

Verb

forerun (third-person singular simple present foreruns, present participle forerunning, simple past foreran, past participle forerun)

1. To run in front.
   • 1969, Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, 1971, Chapter 22, p. 131,^[1]

     Bailey still sat, doubled over his book […] A finger forerunning his eyes along the page.

2. To precede; to forecast or foreshadow.
   • 1597, William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act II, Scene 4,

     These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.

   • 1859-85, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Guinevere", Idylls of the King, Chicago: W.B. Conkey, 1900, pp. 325-6,^[2]

     And in herself she moan’d, ‘Too late, too late!’ / Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, / A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, / Croak’d, […]

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 5,^[3]

     Discontent foreran the Two Mutinies, and more or less it lurkingly survived them.