anterior

(ăn-tîr'ē-ər)
adj.

1. Placed before or in front.
2. Occurring before in time; earlier.
3. Anatomy.
   1. Located near or toward the head in lower animals.
   2. Located on or near the front of the body in higher animals.
   3. Located on or near the front of an organ or on the ventral surface of the body in humans.
4. Botany. In front of and facing away from the axis or stem.

[Latin, comparative of ante, before.]

anteriority an·te'ri·or'i·ty (-ôr'ĭ-tē, -ŏr'-) n.
anteriorly an·te'ri·or·ly adv.

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meaning 'before (in time or place)', is followed by to, not than. Usage tends to occur mostly in technical contexts such as law, anatomy, and geology and related subjects

(Greatest width attained at or just anterior to midlength and greatest thickness at about the middle—Journal of Paleontology, American English 2002).

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adjective

1. Going before: advance, antecedent, earlier, precedent, preceding, previous, prior. See precede/follow.
2. Just gone by or elapsed: antecedent, earlier, foregoing, former, past, precedent, preceding, previous, prior. See time.

adj

Definition: beginning, prior
Antonyms: ending, posterior, subsequent

ventral

The front of a person, organ, or part of a body. See also directional terms.

IN BRIEF: Toward the front.

Dad's big leather chair was placed in the anterior of the living room.

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Situated at or directed toward the front; opposite of posterior. In quadrupeds the use of the term is limited to parts of the head but is often used to mean cranially. In bipeds such as humans it is synonymous with ventral.

• a. abdomen pain — elicited pain in the anterior abdomen caused, in cattle, by reticulitis, hepatic or splenic abscess, abomasal ulcer and intestinal obstruction.
• a. chamber — the part of the eyeball between the cornea and the iris, filled with aqueous humor.
• a. chamber angle — see iridocorneal angle.
• a. compartment — chamber of the eye bounded by the iris and cornea; contains the aqueous humor as it moves to the filtration angle; called also anterior chamber.
• a. cruciate ligament — see cranial (anterior) cruciate ligament.
• a. (cranial) drawer sign — cranial, nonrotary movement of the proximal tibia in relation to the distal femur. Normally restricted by the cranial (anterior) cruciate ligament and used as a diagnostic test for rupture of that structure.
• a. epithelial layer — of the cornea is a noncornified, stratified, squamous epithelium, continuous with the bulbar conjunctival epithelium.
• a. functional stenosis — achalasia of the reticulo-omasal sphincter causing ingesta to accumulate in the reticulorumen.
• a. limiting membrane — of the cornea is a combination of the basement membrane, a felted layer of fine collagen fibers; substantial only in primates.
• a. pituitary — see adenohypophysis.
• a. pituitary hormones — see adenohypophysis.
• a. station trypanosomes — a section of the genus Trypanosoma in which the infectious stages accumulate in the mouthparts and salivary glands of the intermediate host so that the parasite is transmitted when the insect vector takes a blood meal. Called also Salivaria. See also posterior station trypanosomes.
• a. vena cava — see vena cava.

adj

1. situated in front of. adj 2. a term used to denote the incisor and canine teeth or the forward region of the mouth. adj 3. the forward position.

For a list of words related to anterior, see:

• Relative Positions - anterior: (adj) located toward the front; before

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See words rhyming with "anterior."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Anterior.

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - forrest, for-

Nederlands (Dutch)
eerder, voorafgaand, meer naar voren

Français (French)
adj. - précédent, antérieur

Deutsch (German)
adj. - vorder.., früher..

Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - προγενέστερος, προηγούμενος, εμπρόσθιος, πρόσθιος

Italiano (Italian)
anteriore

Português (Portuguese)
adj. - anterior, dianteiro, antecedente

Русский (Russian)
предшествующий, передний

Español (Spanish)
adj. - anterior, pasado, precedente

Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - föregående, främre

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
前部的, 前面的, 较早的, 以前的, 在前的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 前部的, 前面的, 較早的, 以前的, 在前的

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 앞면의, 선행한

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 前の, 前方の, 前面の

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(صفه) أمامي, سابق‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮בא לפני, קודם, קדמי‬

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