precurse

P3R1E1C3U1R1S1E1
US/pɹɪˈkɜɹs/

verb

To forerun or precede.

“And even the like precurse of fierce events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated Unto our climatures and countrymen. (Shakespeare)”

Scrabble 12

Meanings

verbprecurse (third-person singular simple present precurses, present participle precursing, simple past and past participle precursed)

present singular third person precurses · participle present precursing · participle past precursed · past precursed

  1. transitiveTo forerun or precede.

    It is true that competition in capitalism precurses new economic order.

    1987, Shrikant Jichkar, Explorations in Economic Theory of Socialism, page 151
    3 more examples

    As one example, precursing a strain of S. ambofaciens with an aglycone of tylosin while blocking production of spiramycin with cerulenin yielded hybrid macrolides named chimeramycins, which combined structural elements of both tylosin and spiramycin [152].

    1994, Herbert A. Kirst, “5: Semi-Synthetic Derivatives of 16-Membered Macrolide Antibiotics”, in Gwynn Pennant Ellis, David K. Luscombe, editors, Progress in Medicinal Chemistry, volume 31, page 278

    The only way this can be intelligible is by conceiving that school maths competence ‘precurses’ (Gee, 2001) university maths competence, which ‘precurses’ real maths adeptness.[…]After all, this idea of the interpenetration of symbolic competence is built into Bernstein's explanation of how the middle-class home code precurses its young into the school code better than does the working-class home code.

    2006, Johan Muller, “On the shoulders of giants: verticality of knowledge and the school curriculum”, in Rob Moore, Madeleine Arnot, John Beck, Harry Daniels, editors, Knowledge, Power and Educational Reform, page 23

    I will use the Priscilla event as a representative example of a thermally precursed blast wave from a nuclear detonation.

    2010, Charles E. Needham, Blast Waves, page 233
nounprecurse (plural precurses)

plural precurses

  1. archaicA prediction, a prognostication.

    And even the like precurse of fierce events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on, Have heaven and earth together demonstrated Unto our climatures and countrymen. (Shakespeare)

Origin

  1. Latinpraecursum
  2. Englishprecurse

English pre- + curse, from Latin praecursum (supine of praecurrō [“run before”]).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

precurse. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/precurse

MLA

“precurse.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/precurse. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “precurse,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/precurse.

Source: precurse on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.