Noun

{{examples-right, sense=linguistics: expression referred to by pronoun, examples= * In “The policeman asked the boy what he was doing.”, the phrase “the boy” is the antecedent of the pronoun “he”. * In the sentence “I saw my girlfriend yesterday wearing her old jacket which is odd because she almost never wears it.”, the phrase “my girlfriend” is the antecedent of “her” and “old jacket” is the antecedent of “it”.}} (en noun)

Any thing that precedes another thing, especially the cause of the second thing.

An ancestor.

(grammar) A word, phrase or clause referred to by a pronoun.

* Fowler

[W]hereas it might seem orderly that, as who'' is appropriated to persons, so ''that'' should have been appropriated to things the antecedent of ''that is often personal.

*

One such condition can be formulated in terms of the
c-command relation defined in (9) above: the relevant condition is given in (16)
below:
(16)    C-COMMAND CONDITION ON ANAPHORS
        An anaphor must have an appropriate c-commanding antecedent

(logic) The conditional part of a hypothetical proposition.

(rfex)

(math) The first term of a ratio, i.e. the term a'' in the ratio ''a:b , the other being the consequent.