[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That goes or has gone before, preceding (in position or time).
1450–1530. Myrr. our Ladye, 306. Heyle vyrgyn of virgyns heyle lyghte of lyghtnesse, heyle starre forgoynge.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, II. IV. Though they do not meryte wyth any forgoyng good dedes, nor deserue the gyfte of byleuynge, yet maye they wyth good endeuoure and obedyente conformyte, deserue and meryte in the beleuynge.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., Pref. Ep. I trust hee will see that the ensuing matter will be answerable to the foregoing title: much of it being so extraordinarie and vnwonted, that perhaps not any (especially of our nation) hath thereof written before.
1737. Whiston, Josephus’ Hist., I. xix. § 2. Yet did not the multitude comply with those orders, but were so emboldened by their foregoing victory, that they presently attacked the Arabians.
1828. J. H. Moore, Pract. Navig. (ed. 20), 229. From the foregoing examples it is plain, that the operation is the same, whether the Sun hath north or south declination.
1841. Emerson, Addr., Method Nat., Wks. (Bohn), II. 226. An individual man is a fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to form and ripen.
b. absol. (quasi-sb.) and ellipt.
1662. Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., II. ii. § 7. There is yet one part of Learning more among them, which the Egyptians are esteemed for, which is the Political and civil part of it, which may better be called wisdom then most of the fore-going.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), II. 186. Besides the foregoing, Lord Breadalbane has at Taymouth, by the same hand, eleven portraits of Lords and Ladies of the first families in Scotland, painted in 1636 and 1637.
1874. Helps, Soc. Press., iii. 54. The foregoing must not be confounded with purely communistic theories.
