Pre-

//pɹɛ// prefix

prefix ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Prefix
  1. 1
    Before; physically in front of. morpheme
  2. 2
    Before; physically in front of.; Synonym of anterior. morpheme
  3. 3
    Before; earlier in time; beforehand. morpheme

Synonyms

All synonyms
anteforeanterior

Etymology

From Middle English pre-, borrowed from Latin prae-, from the preposition prae (“before”).

Related phrases

pre-existingpre-oppre-operativepre-war

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