What does "prelude" mean?

An introductory or preliminary performance or event.

Prelude

Common synonyms include: overture, preliminary, preludize, antecedence, antecedency, anteposition.

//ˈpɹɛljuːd// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Noun

1
An introductory or preliminary performance or event.
"Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California, called it a “very dangerous escalation and a prelude to potential conflict”."
2
music that precedes a fugue or introduces an act in an opera wordnet
3
A short, free-form piece of music, originally one serving as an introduction to a longer and more complex piece; later, starting with the Romantic period, generally a stand-alone piece.
4
something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows wordnet
5
A standard module or library of subroutines and functions to be imported, generally by default, into a program.
"In the same way that Rust has a general prelude that brings certain types and functions into scope automatically, the std::io module has its own prelude of common types and functions you'll need when working with I/O."

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6
A forerunner to anything. figuratively
"Swimmings of the head and intestinal pains seemed the prelude of dissolution."

Verb

1
To introduce something, as a prelude.
2
play as a prelude wordnet
3
To play an introduction or prelude; to give a prefatory performance.
"The musicians preluded on their instruments."
4
serve as a prelude or opening to wordnet