Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Preliminary; introductory; prefatory.
  • Given to making long exordiums or prefatory remarks.

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

  • adjective literary Introductory; functioning as a preface or prolegomenon.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From prolegomenon.

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Examples

  • And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in the process of excusing one.

    Virginibus Puerisque and other papers 2005

  • As we are now entering upon a book in which the course of our history will oblige us to relate some matters of a more strange and surprizing kind than any which have hitherto occurred, it may not be amiss, in the prolegomenous or introductory chapter, to say something of that species of writing which is called the marvellous.

    The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling 2004

  • And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in the process of excusing one.

    Harvard Classics Volume 28 Essays English and American Various

  • AS we are now entering upon a book in which the course of our history will oblige us to relate some matters of a more strange and surprizing kind than any which have hitherto occurred, it may not be amiss, in the prolegomenous or introductory chapter, to say something of that species of writing which is called the marvellous.

    I. A Wonderful Long Chapter Concerning the Marvellous. Book VIII 1917

  • And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in the process of excusing one.

    Truth of Intercourse 1909

  • As we are now entering upon a book in which the course of our history will oblige us to relate some matters of a more strange and surprizing kind than any which have hitherto occurred, it may not be amiss, in the prolegomenous or introductory chapter, to say something of that species of writing which is called the marvellous.

    History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Henry Fielding 1730

  • - According to what prolegomenous pedagogical model?

    Very Short Novels 2008

  • Writing, "of which he regarded himself with justice as the founder and lawgiver; and in the" prolegomenous, or introductory Chapters "to each book -- those delightful resting-spaces where, as George Eliot says,

    Fielding Austin Dobson 1880

  • He believed that he foresaw a “new Province of Writing,” of which he regarded himself with justice as the founder and lawgiver; and in the “prolegomenous, or introductory Chapters” to each book — those delightful resting-spaces where, as George Eliot says, “he seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine

    Fielding 1843

  • He believed that he foresaw a “new Province of Writing,” of which he regarded himself with justice as the founder and lawgiver; and in the “prolegomenous, or introductory Chapters” to each book — those delightful resting-spaces where, as George Eliot says, “he seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine

    Fielding 1843

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