Meaning

(rare) All the past generations, especially the ancestors of a specific person..

Example Sentences

There was no secretary formally appointed by the meeting; but I thought that, this being the “Gibraltar” of Kansas, I would just quietly vote myself into that office, for the sake of posterity; we all owe something to our anterity, and I think we must place posterity under obligations to us.

The most sacred right of posterity is to annul the debts with which anterity has fraudulently tried to saddle it.—Cleveland Citizen.

Those who prove recreant to the trust, who, untrue to anterity and false to posterity, render liable the stain of conscription—such men simply write themselves down poltroons.

He died a comparatively young man, attributing his heart disease to his grandfather or somebody. We all blame our weaknesses on anterity and ascribe our virtues and strong features to our own wisdom and goodness.

Dear Mr. Billopp—My problem is an aphorism defining “morals,” namely: “Morals are the rules of conduct laid down by posterity.” Only it’s the opposite of “posterity” I mean, and “posterity” has no opposite. […] I have worked on this for years and hate to dump the burden on your research department, but I simply can not find an abstract noun to serve as “posterity’s” antonym. / R. N. Roop / Of course what you want is “anterity,” but there is no such word. […] You might offer a $10,000 prize for the best slogan featuring the word, and run a series of ads displaying the portraits of distinguished literary persons, beginning with H. L. Mencken, and the words “I use ‘anterity’.” […] Maybe you could wangle an “Anterity” commemoration stamp out of Jim Farley or at least get the word on a cancellation.

Onion-hawker, acting as a notary, reads out a document conveying a house owned by Fat Cabbage-stalk, the hoer of Sarno, and his wife Black Pot, to Dreary Slob, a traveller from Acerra, who is buying it for himself, his children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, his great-great-grandchildren and all his posterity. Here Slob interrupts, to Onion-hawker’s annoyance, to insist that ‘forebears’ should be included as well. He is buying it for his ‘anterity’ as well as for his posterity!

Heschel’s horizon looks to posterity, but it is rooted in what we might term “anterity,” the multifaceted layers of tradition.

When Should You Use Anterity?

Use anterity when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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