prelusive
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
- prelusively adverb
- prelusorily adverb
Etymology
Origin of prelusive
Explanation
This paragraph is prelusive because it serves as an introduction to the meaning of this specific word. Things that are prelusive come before something else. An event, piece of writing, or piece of music is prelusive when it acts as a prelude to something more important or substantial that follows. Both words are derived from the Latin pre-, "before," and ludere, "to play." Introductory speeches before a main speaker takes the stage are prelusive. A small skirmish between two nations might be considered prelusive if it comes before a full-scale war. A rumbling from a mountain volcano might be prelusive to a violent eruption.
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.
Even the prelusive delicacies of the present writer—the curt "Astræan allusion"—would be thought pedantic, and out of date, in these days.
From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Lamb, Charles
The lights seemed dim, my voice sounded far away, there was a tumult in my senses that was prelusive of fainting.
From All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography The Red Leaves of a Human Heart by Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston
The last words were murmured as if to himself rather than to us, and he accompanied them abstractedly with tentative, prelusive chords, which gradually grew into the most strangely moving music I have ever heard.
From A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy by Sampson, George
Hepzibah involuntarily thought of the ghostly harmonies, prelusive of death in the family, which were attributed to the legendary Alice.
From House of the Seven Gables by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
I have described the gorgeousness of my expectations in those early days of my prelusive acquaintance with German literature.
From The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg by Hogg, James
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
