What does antedate mean?
Antedate means to assign a date to something that is earlier than its true date — most commonly a document, cheque, contract, or recorded event. A person might antedate a letter to make it seem as though it was written before some pivotal occurrence, or antedate a cheque so that it appears valid on an earlier day. The word also carries a secondary, less common sense: simply to exist or occur earlier than something else in time. Because altering dates can misrepresent facts, antedate often carries connotations of manipulation or irregularity, especially in legal and financial contexts where accurate dating matters. It is a formal word, found chiefly in law, history, scholarship, and forensic discussion rather than casual conversation. Closely related terms include postdate, its temporal opposite, and predate, which today more generally describes one thing coming before another. Understanding antedate is useful for anyone reading historical documents, legal records, or discussions of forgery and chronology.
To assign to something a date earlier than its actual date; also, to precede something else in time.
"The clerk antedated the invoice so it would fall within the previous financial year."
When used of documents, antedating may imply deception or irregularity; when used of events or objects, it simply means occurring earlier.
A date assigned to something that is earlier than its true date.
"The auditor noticed that the cheque bore an antedate of nearly two weeks."
The noun use is rarer than the verb and appears mainly in legal or accounting contexts.
As a noun, the plural 'antedates' refers to multiple instances of dates assigned earlier than their true dates.
"The investigation uncovered several antedates on the firm's shipping documents."
A cheque antedated by just one day can turn a bounced payment into a legal minefield — which is why banks scrutinise dates so closely.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of antedate
Antedate derives from the Latin prefix 'ante-', meaning 'before', combined with 'date', which entered English from medieval Latin 'data' — the past participle of 'dare', meaning 'to give' (a date being what is 'given' at the top of a document). The compound arose in English in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. It shares its prefix with words such as 'antediluvian', referring to the time before the biblical Flood, all built on the same Latin root meaning 'before'.
How antedate is actually used
Antedate is relatively formal and appears most often in legal, historical, and academic contexts. When applied to documents such as cheques or contracts, antedating may be fraudulent or at least irregular, giving the word a slightly suspicious connotation in financial settings. In ordinary speech, 'predate' has largely taken over the sense of simply occurring earlier in time.
Easily confused with antedate
Postdate means to assign a date later than the true one, while antedate means to assign one earlier.
Predate usually means simply to exist or occur earlier than something else, whereas antedate typically refers to assigning an earlier date to a document or event.