single word requests - What do you call a person who started something that is later followed by everyone?


What do you call a person who started something that is later followed by everyone? For example, someone started to stay late at night till 8 p.m. and later everyone started to stay till 8 p.m..



Answer



A trend-setter or trendsetter:



someone who starts a trend, or makes one more popular



The other answers on this page have a couple other fine suggestions — and a thesaurus lookup turns up more suggestions still —, but be aware that some of them require additional quali­fication. For example, it's typically "a harbinger of something", or "a precursor to something". So you won't be able to just say "he is a harbinger" and leave it at that; likewise, "he is a pre­cursor" will only raise questions if no further context is supplied. "He is a trendsetter", on the other hand, is perfectly self-explanatory and self-sufficient.


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