Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to the prænomen; generic, as a name of an animal which precedes its specific name.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Serving as a prefix in a compound name.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective grammar That is placed before a
noun
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of adjectives; placed before the nouns they modify
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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And, if I understand correctly, prenominal phrasal adjectives are hyphenated–making them one word.
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One man said we were prenominal, [B] or something or other like that -- I should worry.
Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels Percy Keese Fitzhugh 1913
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And prenominal genitive determiner noun phrases are not adjectives, so to think that they can't be antecedents of pronouns for that reason is even madder than merely imagining that some obscure rule is being violated.
Language Log 2009
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Hence I’m wondering if I used a phrasal adjective correctly and have no clue what prenominal means even after Googling it.
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This last point isn’t at all trivial, in view of the odd property of superlatives that they are acceptable as prenominal modifiers in many cases in which the corresponding simple and comparative forms aren’t: You can say the closest bank to my house but not a close bank to my house or a closer bank to my house than the Deadwood Trust.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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This last point isn’t at all trivial, in view of the odd property of superlatives that they are acceptable as prenominal modifiers in many cases in which the corresponding simple and comparative forms aren’t: You can say the closest bank to my house but not a close bank to my house or a closer bank to my house than the Deadwood Trust.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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This last point isn’t at all trivial, in view of the odd property of superlatives that they are acceptable as prenominal modifiers in many cases in which the corresponding simple and comparative forms aren’t: You can say the closest bank to my house but not a close bank to my house or a closer bank to my house than the Deadwood Trust.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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This last point isn’t at all trivial, in view of the odd property of superlatives that they are acceptable as prenominal modifiers in many cases in which the corresponding simple and comparative forms aren’t: You can say the closest bank to my house but not a close bank to my house or a closer bank to my house than the Deadwood Trust.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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(adj): prenominal), pacifistic, dovish -- (opposed to war
Comments
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