Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Prelude   /prˈeɪlˌud/   Listen
noun
Prelude  n.  An introductory performance, preceding and preparing for the principal matter; a preliminary part, movement, strain, etc.; especially (Mus.), a strain introducing the theme or chief subject; a movement introductory to a fugue, yet independent; with recent composers often synonymous with overture. "The last Georgic was a good prelude to the Aenis" "The cause is more than the prelude, the effect is more than the sequel, of the fact."
Synonyms: Preface; introduction; preliminary; preamble; forerunner; harbinger; precursor.


verb
Prelude  v. t.  
1.
To introduce with a previous performance; to play or perform a prelude to; as, to prelude a concert with a lively air.
2.
To serve as prelude to; to precede as introductory. "(Music) preluding some great tragedy."


Prelude  v. i.  (past & past part. preluded; pres. part. preluding)  To play an introduction or prelude; to give a prefatory performance; to serve as prelude. "The musicians preluded on their instruments." "We are preluding too largely, and must come at once to the point."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Prelude" Quotes from Famous Books



... that some study of an age must ever prelude and accompany the study of its individuals, if comprehension is to wait upon our labours. To proceed otherwise is to judge an individual Hottentot or South Sea Islander by the code of manners that obtains ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... in the trench and caused thirty-five casualties, including all the sergeants of the company. On the eve of an attack such an occurrence was calculated to affect the morale of any troops. That the company afterwards did well was specially creditable in view of this demoralising prelude. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... winter camp of 1778-'79 forms a fitting prelude to another feat performed by Old Put, this time a physical one, which, while not so worthy of renown, perhaps, as the great moral victory he achieved over his men, has brought him greater fame. Both taken together ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... take us too far out of our track, we should prelude this inquiry by illustrating at some length a certain general law of progress;—the law that alike in occupations, sciences, arts, the divisions that had a common root, but by continual divergence have become distinct, and are now being separately developed, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... remembrance of its higher calling. The elements of a far deeper change were seething; a change, not in the disposition of outward authority, but in the beliefs and convictions which touched the life of the soul. This was yet to come; and the work so far was but the initial step or prelude leading up to the more solemn struggle. Yet where the enemy who is to be conquered is strong, not in vital force, but in the prestige of authority, and in the enchanted defences of superstition, those truly win the battle who ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude


More quotes...


Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com