Fore‐run″ner (?), n. 1. A messenger sent before to give notice of the approach of others; a harbinger; a sign foreshowing something; a prognostic; as, the forerunner of a fever.
Whither the forerunner in for us entered, even Jesus. Heb. vi. 20.
My elder brothers, my forerunners, came. Dryden.
2. A predecessor; an ancestor. Shak.
3. (Naut.) A piece of rag terminating the log line.