prefatory

American

[pref-uh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee] / ˈprɛf əˌtɔr i, -ˌtoʊr i /

Often prefatorial

adjective

of, relating to, or of the nature of a preface.

prefatory explanations.

prefatory British

/ ˌprɛfəˈtɔːrɪəl, ˈprɛfətərɪ, -trɪ /

adjective

of, involving, or serving as a preface; introductory

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

prefatorily adverb

Etymology

Origin of prefatory

1665–75; < Latin praefāt ( iō ) preface + -ory ¹

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But biologists studying everything from yeast to snakes to humans have recently unearthed a plethora of so-called noncanonical ORFs, which lack those prefatory snippets and are shorter than average.

From Science Magazine • Nov. 24, 2024

I dropped the prefatory clause, since everyone ignores anyway.

From Salon • Apr. 23, 2023

After struggling through the five nearly inscrutable prefatory poems, I put the book down for a week before taking it up again.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 5, 2019

A prefatory note: I confess that I didn’t realize that I would have to do some work to prepare these turkeys.

From Slate • Nov. 21, 2018

The compass allows you to navigate out of sight of land and, naturally, Edward Wright’s prefatory letter to On the Magnet mentions the circumnavigations of the Earth by English sailors.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023