What does "foreword" mean?

An introductory section preceding the main text of a book or other document; especially, one written by another person (not the author of the work thus introduced).

Foreword

Q: What is a synonym for "foreword"?

Common synonyms include: introduction, preamble, preface, acknowledgment, acknowledgments, anteriority.

//ˈfɔɹwɝd// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1
An introductory section preceding the main text of a book or other document; especially, one written by another person (not the author of the work thus introduced).
"He closes the foreword by acknowledging that his proposals would have far-reaching impacts on railway staff, communities and industry - and passes the buck onto government to ensure that these consequences are managed appropriately."
2
a short introductory essay preceding the text of a book wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

introduction preamble preface acknowledgment acknowledgments anteriority

Antonyms

All antonyms

afterword back matter conclusion endsay

Example

More examples

"This dictionary has a preface, not a foreword."

Etymology

Morphologically fore- + word. Calque of German Vorwort, itself a calque of Latin praefatio (“preface”). Cognate with German Low German Vörwoord (“foreword”), Dutch voorwoord (“foreword”), West Frisian foarwurd (“foreword”), Danish forord (“preface; proviso”), Swedish förord (“foreword”). Compare also Old English forword, foreword (“proviso; condition”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.