An antedated

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tr ...

is a contract whose date is in the past; formally, a contract where the

effective date An effective date or as of date is the date upon which something is considered to take effect, which may be a past, present or future date. This may be different from the date upon which the event occurs or is recorded. See also *Coming into fo ...

on the contract is prior to the date on which the contract is executed (written, signed, made effective). The term is from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''ante'' meaning "before", and its antonym is '' postdate.'' Another example, in simpler terms, might be that if something antedates something else, it predates it, or is older than it. See

antedated check In banking, antedated refers to cheques which have been written by the drawer, and dated at some point in the past. In the United States antedated cheques are described in the Uniform Commercial Code's Article 3, Section 113. See also *Post-dated ...

for ante.