What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Forbear vs Forerunner - What's the difference?

forbear | forerunner | Synonyms |

Forbear is a synonym of forerunner.


As nouns the difference between forbear and forerunner

is that forbear is while forerunner is a runner at the front or ahead.

As a verb forbear

is to keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from; to give up.

forbear

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) forberen, from (etyl) . (got)

Verb

  • To keep away from; to avoid; to abstain from; to give up.
  • To refrain from proceeding; to pause; to delay.
  • * Bible, 1 Kings xxii. 6
    • Shall I go to battle, or shall I forbear ?
  • To refuse; to decline; to give no heed.
  • * Bible, Ezekiel ii. 7
    • Thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear .
  • To control oneself when provoked.
  • * Cowper
    • The kindest and the happiest pair / Will find occasion to forbear .
  • * Old proverb
    • Both bear and forbear .
    Related terms
    * forbearance * forbearant

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • * [1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.
    • Sirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold [...]
  • * [1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia [http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8]
    • One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group.
  • * 1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin [http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=8JIveUt8StQC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&sig=_AETFoZUYlti38_Va0zOHD4yZTk]
    • Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears'” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the ' forbears who antedated John:
    English heteronyms

    forerunner

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a runner at the front or ahead
  • (sport) by extension, a non-competitor who leads out the competitors on to the circuit, or who runs/rides the course prior to competitor trials, usually testing or checking the way.
  • a precursor or harbinger, a warning ahead
  • * '>citation
  • a forebear, an ancestor, a predecessor
  • (philately) a postage stamp used in the time before a region or area issues stamps of its own
  • something that introduces a part of the properties offered by some later thing.
    • Bakelite is a forerunner of today's plastics.