Forerunner

Origin

fore + runner

Full definition of forerunner

Noun

1. a runner at the front or ahead
2. (sport) by extension, a non-competitor who leads out the competitors on to the circuit, or who runs/rides the course prior to competitor trials, usually testing or checking the way.
3. a precursor or harbinger, a warning ahead
• 1922, w, “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days Chapter 3/1/1, How meek and shrunken did that haughty Tarmac become as it slunk by the wide circle of asphalt of the yellow sort, that was loosely strewn before the great iron gates of Lady Hall as a forerunner of the consideration that awaited the guests of Rupert, Earl of Kare, ....
4. a forebear, an ancestor, a predecessor
5. (philately) a postage stamp used in the time before a region or area issues stamps of its own