adj, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An infant born prematurely.

Adjective

1. 1
   Occurring before a state of readiness or maturity has arrived.

   "a premature birth"

2. 2
   Taking place earlier than anticipated, prepared for, or desired.

   "I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my brain."

3. 3
   Suffering from premature ejaculation. informal

Adjective

1. 1
   uncommonly early or before the expected time wordnet
2. 2
   too soon or too hasty wordnet
3. 3
   born after a gestation period of less than the normal time wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

earlyuntimelya bit previousadvancedanticipatorybeforehand

Antonyms

All antonyms

nonprematureoverduepunctualfull-term

Example

More examples

"Are you saying that our plan was accepted? I hope you're not showing me any premature happiness here."

Etymology

From Latin praemātūrus, equivalent to pre- + mature. First use appears c. 1440 in a translation of Palladius's De Re Rustica.

Related phrases

premature antifascistpremature birthpremature ejaculationpremature ejaculatorpremature optimisationpremature optimizationget ahead of oneselfpremature ejaculation

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