PREFACE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does preface mean? 

• PREFACE (noun)
  The noun PREFACE has 1 sense:

1. a short introductory essay preceding the text of a book

  Familiarity information: PREFACE used as a noun is very rare.

• PREFACE (verb)
  The verb PREFACE has 1 sense:

1. furnish with a preface or introduction

  Familiarity information: PREFACE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PREFACE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A short introductory essay preceding the text of a book

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

foreword; preface; prolusion

Hypernyms ("preface" is a kind of...):

introduction (the first section of a communication)

Holonyms ("preface" is a part of...):

text; textual matter (the words of something written)

Derivation:

preface (furnish with a preface or introduction)

prefatorial (serving as an introduction or preface)

• PREFACE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they preface    ... he / she / it prefaces   
Past simple: prefaced   
Past participle: prefaced   
-ing form: prefacing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Furnish with a preface or introduction

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

introduce; precede; preface; premise

Context example:

He prefaced his lecture with a critical remark about the institution

Hypernyms (to "preface" is one way to...):

say; state; tell (express in words)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "preface"):

preamble (make a preliminary introduction, usually to a formal document)

prologise; prologize; prologuize (write or speak a prologue)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

preface (a short introductory essay preceding the text of a book)

 Context examples 

All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

After this preface, he gave me a particular account of the struldbrugs among them.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I think we shall never materially disagree about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Her cousin prefaced his speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the words apology, Hunsford, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

A dignity was given to the contest by a rigid code of ceremony, just as the clash of mail-clad knights was prefaced and adorned by the calling of the heralds and the showing of blazoned shields.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This preface made me so impatient, being conscious of my own merits and innocence, that I was going to interrupt him; when he entreated me to be silent, and thus proceeded:—

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A preface to the first edition of "Jane Eyre" being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

That was our first drama at Hurlstone; but a second one came to drive it from our minds, and it was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of butler Brunton.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)