antedate

See also: antedaté

English

Etymology

ante- +‎ date

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈæntiˌdeɪt/

Verb

antedate (third-person singular simple present antedates, present participle antedating, simple past and past participle antedated)

1. To occur before an event or time; to exist further back in time.
   • 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness, chapter 2:

     I suppose you know all about the fearful myths antedating the coming of man to the earth—the Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu cycles—which are hinted at in the Necronomicon.

   • 1986, People v. Calio, 42 Cal.3d 639,644

     We therefore turn to the question whether defendant's prior convictions for burglary and attempted burglary could be used as the basis for an enhancement under [California Penal Code] sections 667 and 1192.7. Both prior convictions antedate the effective date of section 667.

2. To assign a date to a document or action earlier than the actual date; to backdate.
   • 1633: John Donne, "Woman's Constancy"

     Tomorrow when you leav’st, what wilt thou say? / Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?

3. (lexicography) To find earlier citational evidence for a term.
   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[1], page 3:

     Furthermore, while OED entries are generally regarded as a good indication of when terms were first used in English, for 5 of the 7 terms the present research has been able to antedate OED’s earliest attestations, usually by a decade or more.

Synonyms

• (occur before an event or time): predate; see also Thesaurus:predate
• (earlier than the actual date): backdate, foredate

Antonyms

• (occur before an event or time): postdate
• (earlier than the actual date): postdate, overdate

Translations

To occur before an event or time; to exist further back in time

• Bulgarian: предшествам (predšestvam)
• Finnish: edeltää (fi)

• Interlingue: antedatar
• Russian: предше́ствовать (ru) (predšéstvovatʹ)

To assign a date earlier than the actual date; to backdate

• Bulgarian: поставям по-раншна дата на документ
• Czech: antedatovat
• Dutch: antedateren (nl)
• French: antidater (fr)

• Ido: predatizar (io)
• Interlingue: antedatar
• Portuguese: antedatar, pré-datar
• Russian: дати́ровать задним числом (datírovatʹ zadnim čislom)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Esperanto: ^{(please verify)} antaŭdati

• Serbo-Croatian: ^{(please verify)} antidatirati (sh)

Noun

antedate

1. Prior date; a date antecedent to another which is the actual date.
2. (obsolete) anticipation

   (Can we find and add a quotation of John Donne to this entry?)

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Spanish

Verb

antedate

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of antedatar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of antedatar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of antedatar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of antedatar.