Prefix · position / time
Signals something that exists or happens before something else: preview, prepare, prehistoric.
Written by Bryan López, English teacher · Updated
Pre- comes from Latin prae (in front of, before). With nouns and adjectives it marks something that exists prior to something else: prehistory, precaution, premature. With verbs it means the action happens before another event: preview, predict, prepare, preorder.
Pre- is extremely common in modern English: preschool, prepay, preorder, pre-existing. When you see pre-, ask yourself "what comes after?" and pre- will tell you what happened just before that thing. The Spanish cognates are nearly identical, making this prefix especially easy for Spanish speakers to learn.
Attaches directly to nouns, adjectives, and verbs with no spelling change:
Written solid (no hyphen) in most modern usage: preschool, prepay. A hyphen is used when the solid form would be confusing: pre-date (to come before in time) vs predate (to prey on).
pre-/priː/
Tap the button to hear how the prefix sounds. Each word in the table has its own audio.
"Prevent" comes from Latin "praevenire" (to get ahead of something) and today means to stop or hinder, not to see in advance.
Modern English writes pre- solid in almost all cases. The hyphen is only added when necessary for clarity.
A trick to remember it
When you see pre-, ask "what comes after?" Then pre- tells you something happened just before that thing: preview = see before the main event, preschool = school before primary school, precaution = act before the problem arrives.
Exercise 1 · Form the word
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
Which pre- word means "arriving or happening before the expected or normal time"?
Exercise 3 · Pick the right one
She booked the hotel online to ___ and guarantee her room for the busy weekend.
The prefix pre- signals something that exists or happens before something else: preview, prepare, prehistoric. In Spanish it usually maps to pre-.
The prefix pre- is pronounced /priː/. For example, "preview".
"view" becomes "preview". It is a typical example of the pre- prefix.
un-, re-, pre-, dis-, over-, in-... every beginning you need to unlock thousands of English words at once.