Meaning: The ratio of the output to the input of any system. Classified under: Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas. Hypernyms (efficiency is a kind of...): ratio (the relative magnitudes of two quantities (usually expressed as a quotient))
uk â /ËÃ¦n.tiËsiË.dÉnt/ us â /ËÃ¦n.tÌ¬ÉËsiË.dÉnt/. âº formal someone or something existing or happening before, especially as the cause or origin of something existing or happening later: Charles Babbage's mechanical calculating engines were the antecedents of the modern computer. Many people feel a great curiosity to find out about their antecedents. âº specialized language a word or phrase that a pronoun refers back to: In the sentence He picked a book off the shelf and handed it to Sally, book is the antecedent of it.
An antecedent is the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers, understood by the context. The antecedent in the following sample sentence is bolded. The critique of Plato's Republic was written from a contemporary point of view. It was an in-depth analysis of Plato's opinions about possible governmental forms.