By THE NEW YORK TIMES. Twenty-seventh President of the United States and its tenth Chief Justice, William Howard Taft was the only man in the history of the country to become the head of both the Executive and Judicial Departments of the Federal Government.
Adj. 1. preceding-existing or coming before. antecedent-preceding in time or order. succeeding-coming after or following. previous-Preceding means occurring immediately before the time of the utterance, while previous means occurring at some time before the utterance..
Definition of past. 1  1a : time gone byb : something that happened or was done in the past regret the past. 2  2a : the past tense of a languageb : a verb form in the past tense. 3  3 : a past life, history, or course of action; especially : one that is kept secret.