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.
[Obs.]
Shak.
3. Naut.
A piece of rag terminating the log line.
© Webster 1913.