Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Serving or tending to prepare or make ready; preliminary.
- noun Something that prepares for or acts as a preliminary to something following.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Serving or tending to prepare or make ready; preparatory.
- a business meeting, or meeting for discipline, held before the monthly meeting, to which it is subordinate;
- the organization which holds the meeting. Each monthly meeting has usually two or more preparative meetings connected with it.
- noun That which is preparatory; something that prepares or paves the way; a preparatory measure or act.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun That which has the power of preparing, or previously fitting for a purpose; that which prepares.
- noun That which is done in the way of preparation.
- adjective Tending to prepare or make ready; having the power of preparing, qualifying, or fitting; preparatory.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective That serves to
prepare something - adjective
preliminary orpreparatory - noun Something to be done in
preparation ; apreliminary
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective preceding and preparing for something
Etymologies
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Examples
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The first Nobel Prize for Chemistry recognizing pioneering work in preparative organic chemistry was that to Victor Grignard from
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Development of Modern Chemistry 2010
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They have, however, also been very useful in preparative chemistry and two Nobel Prizes have been awarded for such applications: 1912 to Grignard and 1963 to Ziegler and Natta.
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They're asking a psychologist should do so-called preparative or conversion therapy on gay patients?
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Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep; it takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the condition of a thinking man, when he is but half-awake.
Isaac Bickerstaff, physician and astrologer Richard Steele 1700
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Then we start preparative work: we learn the history, search for the images, develop the texture, choose the technique and draw sketches.
Evelyne Politanoff: Valley of Dolls: The Popovy Sisters, the New Wave of Russian Art-Doll Designers Evelyne Politanoff 2011
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Another large group, preparative organic chemistry, has also been given its own section
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Development of Modern Chemistry 2010
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She was not aware of it, however, any more than she was aware that her desire that Martin take a position was the instinctive and preparative impulse of motherhood.
Chapter 26 2010
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She began her career in Pittsburgh as a Research Chemist developing characterization methods, especially preparative-scale liquid chromatographic separations, for the “Structural Definition of Synthetic Fuels” project in the Coal Science Division.
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And since our Happiness in the next World, depends so far on those dispositions which we carry along with us out of this, that without a right habitude and temper of mind we are not capable of Felicity; and seeing our Beatitude consists in the contemplation of the divine Truth and Beauty, as well as in the fruition of his Goodness, can Ignorance be a fit preparative for Heaven?
Mary Astell Sowaal, Alice 2008
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Having thus briefly anatomised the body and soul of man, as a preparative to the rest; I may now freely proceed to treat of my intended object, to most men's capacity; and after many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is, show his name and differences.
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