Proleptic
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An instance of prolepsis;; The placement of an element in a syntactic unit before that to which it would logically correspond.
- 2 An instance of prolepsis;; Information about the outcome of a story placed near the beginning.
- 3 An instance of prolepsis;; A lateral branch that develops from a lateral meristem, after the formation of a bud or following a period of dormancy, when the lateral meristem is split from a terminal meristem.
- 4 Something that predicts or implies the future or outcome.
- 1 Extrapolated to dates prior to its first adoption; of those used to adjust to or from the Julian calendar or Gregorian calendar.
"The Julian proleptic calendar is formed by applying the rules of the Julian calendar to times before Caesar's reform, and the Julian date (JD) specifies the particular instant of a day by ending the Julian day number with the fraction of the day elapsed since the preceding Greenwich noon."
- 2 Anticipatory; prescient or forward-looking.
"A far-seeing or proleptic wisdom."
- 3 Exhibiting or pertaining to prolepsis (any sense)
"a 'proleptic' epithet describing the result of the hunt, means literally 'with leafage broken' and is formed from the stem of ἀγνύναι."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The Julian proleptic calendar is formed by applying the rules of the Julian calendar to times before Caesar's reform, and the Julian date (JD) specifies the particular instant of a day by ending the Julian day number with the fraction of the day elapsed since the preceding Greenwich noon."
Etymology
From prolepsis (“anticipation”) + -ic.
Related phrases
More for "proleptic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.