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avant-

prefix

  1. of or belonging to the avant-garde of a specified field
“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


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Example Sentences

They were joined by veteran executives Clarence Avant and Ahmet Ertegun, plus Colin Powell, the former national security adviser and head of the US military who would go on to become the first African-American secretary of state.

From BBC

He also has the backing of several Hollywood power brokers, including Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos and his wife, Nicole Avant, a U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas under former President Obama.

Three Stages: That’s what’s on tap on June 29 at PlanetPride, a dance party at Avant Gardner in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg.

He had a shaved head and he was cool and punk, and I was trying to get him into my band, which was called Avant Garde.

Cuomo: I wasn’t the singer in Avant Garde.

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Words That Use Avant-

What does avant- mean?

Avant- is a prefix meaning “before” or “forward.” It is very occasionally used in some technical terms.

Avant- comes from French avant, meaning “before.” Avant, in turn, derives from Latin ante, “before,” which is the source of the English combining form ante-.

In most cases, avant- is joined to other words with a hyphen, as in avant-courier.

Examples of avant-

The most common word that features the prefix avant- is avant-garde, “the advance group in any field whose works are characterized by unorthodox and experimental methods.”

The prefix avant- means “before,” while the -garde part of the word comes from French, “guard.” Avant-garde literally means “before guard” or, more clearly, “forward guard.” If this translation sounds familiar, that may be because avant-garde related to the term vanguard.

What are some words that use the prefix avant-?

What are some other forms that avant- may be commonly confused with?

Break it down!

The word courier means “messenger.” With this in mind, who was the avant-courier of the army, historically?

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Avalon Peninsulaavant-garde