Unprecedented

How to spell unprecedented

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce unprecedented

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unprecedented mean?

1. adjectiveNever having happened or existed before; without any earlier example to compare it to.

Unprecedented in a sentence

• The company reported unprecedented profits in its final quarter.

• The storm caused unprecedented damage across the coastal towns.

Where does unprecedented come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb praecedere, meaning 'to go before' or 'to come ahead of', formed from prae 'before' and cedere 'to go' or 'to yield'. From that root English gained 'precedent', a noun for something that has gone before and now serves as a guide or example. Adding the negative prefix 'un-' produces the sense 'having no precedent', that is, never having happened before. The adjective was in use by the early seventeenth century and became increasingly common in legal and political writing, where appeals to past precedent matter greatly. The same cedere root, meaning 'to go', also surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'proceed', 'recede', and 'concede', and remembering that shared 'ced' spelling (not 'sed') is the key to getting unprecedented right.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• pre- (before)
• ced (go, from Latin cedere)
• -ent (adjective suffix)
• -ed (adjective ending)