prologue
/ˈprəʊlɒɡ
/(US prolog)
noun
1A separate introductory section of a literary, dramatic, or musical work: the suppressed prologue to Women in Love...
- In this prologue, Chaucer introduces all of the characters who are involved in this imaginary journey and who will tell the tales.
- This novel consists of three primary sections that are framed by a prologue and an epilogue.
- Although many of the words and phrases of the Prologue are found in numerous secular Greek literary prologues, two have a ‘Christian’ nuance.
Synonyms
introduction, foreword, preface, preamble, prelude, preliminary
informal intro
rare exordium, proem, prolegomenon, prooemium, prooemion
1.1 archaic The actor who delivers the prologue in a play.
2An event or act that leads to another: the events from 1945 to 1956 provided the prologue to the post-imperial era...
- The progression had been gradual, a series of tiny, inconsequential steps, a typical prologue to a cataclismic event.
- Even if it is the History Channel and not the Myth Channel, I expected at least a nod to this prologue to the historical events.
- However, it was the prologue to the England game which was most instructive about the rottenness of the state.
2.1(In professional cycling) a short preliminary time trial held before a race to establish a leader: I got third in the prologue and eighth on the hardest stage...
- It shouldn't come as a surprise that he can climb, as a former mountainbiker, but this guy also had an excellent prologue and an average time-trial at Romandie.
- The prologue is a time trial in the far south of Italy.
- My personal goal was to try and test myself as well as some new equipment in the prologue and in the time trial on Mt. Ventoux.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French, via Latin from Greek prologos, from pro- 'before' + logos 'saying'.
logic from Late Middle English:
Logic came via Old French from late Latin, and from Greek logikē (tekhnē) ‘(art) of reason’; the base is Greek logos ‘word, reason’, found also in prologue (Middle English) ‘words said before’. Logo, a 1930s shortening of logogram, ‘a sign representing a word or phrase, shorthand’, or of the printing term logotype, ‘a single piece of type that prints a word, phrase, or symbol’ (both E19th) also goes back to logos.