The word “ante” has been employed in literature with a remarkable range of functions. In many narrative texts it is used to designate a space that comes “before” another—such as an ante-room or ante-chamber where characters pause or wait, as seen in Russian short stories ([1], [2], [3]), in fairy tales ([4]), and in works by authors like Mark Twain and Victor Hugo ([5], [6]). Meanwhile, academic and scholarly works often use “ante” in a citation or referential sense: indicating earlier passages or ideas (for example, in John Dewey’s discussions on education, [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]) and in Latin phrases that denote precedence or earlier occurrence ([12], [13], [14]). This dual usage—both as a spatial descriptor and a marker of sequence or priority—reflects its deep roots in Latin and its flexible adaptation in various literary and scholarly contexts.