Premortem

adj, adv, noun

adj, adv, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An analysis of potential failure before it happens.

    "Military researchers have been testing the use of premortems to critique military plans. Where, when, and why might coordination break down? How might the breakdowns be rectified at the time?"

Adjective
  1. 1
    Before death. not-comparable

    "Reappearing, tape-measure in hand, he went into the bedroom and took slow and accurate measurements, whistling delightedly to find that his pre-mortem theoretical calculations and post-mortem practical measurements hardly varied."

Adverb
  1. 1
    Before death. not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms
antemortemantemortemanthumousanthumouslypredeathprehumous

Example

More examples

"Every falling snowflake dances its premortem dance."

Etymology

From pre- (“before”) + Latin mortem (accusative singular of mors (“death”)), after post mortem.

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