Procedents

Procedents is a rarely used English noun, the plural form of procedent. It refers to things that proceed from a source or antecedent, and it appears primarily in historical, legal, or philosophical texts. The term stems from Latin procedere "to go forward" and entered English through early modern borrowings. In modern usage, procedural or procedural documents are used instead of procedents, and the word is mostly encountered in archival or scholarly contexts rather than contemporary writing.

In law and administration, procedents are sometimes described as antecedent documents, steps, or factors that lead to a decision or action. They can be cited in historical case records to identify the sequence of proceedings before a ruling. In philosophy or logic, procedural chains that proceed from a given assumption might be discussed in terms of procedural steps: the procedents of an argument would be the premises and intermediate conclusions that lead forward, although more common terms are premises, antecedents, or steps.

Because procedents is not widely used today, modern glossaries rarely include it, and many readers will encounter it only in archived texts. When used, it should be defined in context to avoid confusion with precedent or proceed.

See also: precedents, antecedents, premises, chain of reasoning, proceedings.