preliminary
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
preliminary/prɪˈlɪmɪnəri/
▶adjective preceding or done in preparation for something fuller or more important. ▶noun (pl. preliminaries)
- 1 a preliminary action or event.
- 2 a preliminary round in a sporting competition.
- 3 (preliminaries) the prelims of a book.
– phrases
preliminary to preparatory to; in advance of.
preliminary to preparatory to; in advance of.
– derivatives
preliminarily adverb.
preliminarily adverb.
– origin C17: from mod. L. praeliminaris or Fr. préliminaire, from L. prae ‘before’ + limen, limin- ‘threshold’.
'preliminary' also found in these Oxford entries:
bracket
- cartoon
- dawn raid
- draft
- Gram stain
- Green Paper
- groundwork
- heat
- introduction
- introductory
- magistrate
- maquette
- open
- preamble
- precognition
- prelim
- preprocess
- presoak
- pretest
- prewash
- primary
- project
- prolusion
- prototype
- reconnaissance
- retain
- rough
- rough cut
- trial run
- underdrawing
