proleptic

[ proh-lep-tik ]

adjective

1. (of a date) retroactively calculated using a later calendar than the one used at the time:

   To make comparisons more simple, all dates are shown using the proleptic Gregorian calendar—that is, the modern Western calendar extrapolated into the past.

2. involving or characterized by prolepsis, the anticipatory use of arguments, adjectives, etc.:

   The proleptic idiom “to be dead meat” uses a present-tense description to suggest one’s future doom.

3. anticipatory; foreshadowing:

   The proleptic detail of the borrowed scythe clearly reveals that the character’s life on stage will be of short duration.

Other Words From

• pro·lep·ti·cal·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of proleptic¹

First recorded in 1655–65; prolep(sis) ( def ) + -tic ( def )

Example Sentences

But when they can't be overheard, the slaves use an eloquent, highly intellectual form of English, for example discussing "proleptic irony".

From BBC

Bolaño’s admirers will find in these themes and players a satisfying proleptic glimpse of his picaresque masterpiece, 1998’s “The Savage Detectives” — a circuitous hunt for vestiges of an underground “visceral realist” literary movement and its muse, the poet Cesárea Tinajero, which starts in Mexico City and detours to the Sonora Desert, Paris, San Diego, Barcelona and elsewhere.

From New York Times

With Israeli independence, “‘Zion’ ceased to be a proleptic ideal or symbol and began to be an archaeological site with borders to defend.”

From New York Times

For Levinson, author of the stunning and proleptic novel “Tell Me How This Ends Well,” dystopia, at least Jewish dystopia, is practically a preexisting condition, which is what drew him to set his novel in a near-future America wherein the state of Israel no longer exists and millions of refugees have relocated to the U.S., provoking virulent anti-Semitism and homegrown pogroms.

From Salon

He says things like “That’s when the Kabram boy just got out there and spilled the durn beans,” and also talks of “proleptic decay and decrepitude.”

From The New Yorker