Preverbal

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A preverb.
Adjective
  1. 1
    At an early stage of development in which one is not yet able to communicate by means of words. not-comparable

    "The expressive power of intonation in communication with preverbal infants was a topic of considerable interest in the early literature on language acquisition."

  2. 2
    Occurring before the verb in a sentence or expression. not-comparable

    "I will attempt to document some recent syntactic (word order) changes involving preverbal noun phrases in the Coast Tsimshian language."

Antonyms

All antonyms
verbal

Example

More examples

"The expressive power of intonation in communication with preverbal infants was a topic of considerable interest in the early literature on language acquisition."

Etymology

From pre- + verbal.

More for "preverbal"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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