Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A first or given name.
  • noun The first name of a citizen of ancient Rome, as Gaius in Gaius Julius Caesar.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Among the ancient Romans, a name prefixed to the family name, answering to the modern Christian or personal name, as Gaius, Lucius, Marcus, etc.
  • noun In zoology, the generic name, or name of the genus to which a species belongs, which invariably precedes the specific or trivial name in the binomial system of nomenclature. Thus, Felis is the prænomen in the term Felis leo, which is the technical name of the lion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Rom. Antiq.) The first name of a person, by which individuals of the same family were distinguished, answering to our Christian name, as Caius, Lucius, Marcus, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An ancient Roman first name.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the first name of a citizen of ancient Rome

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin praenōmen : prae-, pre- + nōmen, name; see nŏ̄-men- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin praenomen, from prae- + nomen.

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