SUCCESSOR

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does successor mean? 

• SUCCESSOR (noun)
  The noun SUCCESSOR has 3 senses:

1. a person who follows next in order

2. a thing or person that immediately replaces something or someone

3. a person who inherits some title or office

  Familiarity information: SUCCESSOR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUCCESSOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who follows next in order

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

replacement; successor

Context example:

he was President Lincoln's successor

Hypernyms ("successor" is a kind of...):

compeer; equal; match; peer (a person who is of equal standing with another in a group)

Derivation:

succeed (be the successor (of))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A thing or person that immediately replaces something or someone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("successor" is a kind of...):

replacement; substitute (a person or thing that takes or can take the place of another)

Derivation:

succeed (be the successor (of))

Sense 3

Meaning:

A person who inherits some title or office

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

heir; successor

Hypernyms ("successor" is a kind of...):

issue; offspring; progeny (the immediate descendants of a person)

Derivation:

succeed (be the successor (of))

 Context examples 

And their successors were alive before they were supposed to have evolved.

(Mass extinction of land and sea biodiversity 250 million years ago not simultaneous, National Science Foundation)

This would make disease control measures that were effective against SARS-CoV-1 less effective against its successor.

(New coronavirus stable for hours on surface, National Institutes of Health)

It is the successor organization to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center, which was first designated as an NCI cancer center in 1973.

(Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, NCI Thesaurus)

As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which were received by himself and his successors.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As her successor in that house, she regarded her with jealous abhorrence.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

At last he arrived in Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

With each successive iteration, researchers think successor moons would have been five times smaller than the previous moon, with some debris raining down on the Martian surface.

(Mars May Have Had Rings, and May Once Again, VOA News)

We are just starting to probe the atmospheres of exoplanets with ground-based telescopes, but the authors believe that this will also be a reference exoplanet for future studies with space telescopes such as the James Webb Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Telescope.

(Multiple metals – and possible signs of water – found in unique exoplanet, University of Cambridge)