Word.ws English Dictionary

preapologize

preapologize verb: to apologize in advance; to make an apology before the fact.

Verb

preapologize (third-person singular simple present preapologizes, present participle preapologizing, simple past and past participle preapologized)

  1. (intransitive) To apologize in advance; to make an apology before the fact.
    • Newman was so ashamed of the film, he took out an ad in the Los Angeles Times to pre-apologize to television viewers on the eve of its late-night showing.1989 Oct, Robert Cetti Jr, “Detour: What Drives Paul Newman?”, in Orange Coast Magazine, page 72
    • The second example, a cartoon, shows a husband announcing to his wife, that he wants to pre-apologize before going out for the evening. Despite the humor involved in the idea of “pre-apologizing,” I do not believe that a person can meaningfully apologize before the event.2004, Aaron Lazare, On Apology, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 171

Forms of preapologize

third-person singular presentpreapologizes
present participlepreapologizing
past participlepreapologized
pastpreapologized
alternative formpre-apologize

Origin of preapologize

From pre- + apologize.

Questions about preapologize

What does preapologize mean?
Preapologize means to apologize in advance; to make an apology before the fact.
What part of speech is preapologize?
Preapologize is a verb.
What is the past tense of preapologize?
The past tense of preapologize is preapologized.

Words near preapologize in the dictionary

  1. preapically
  2. preapicals
  3. preapnea
  4. preapocalyptic
  5. preapologies
  6. preapologize
  7. preapologized
  8. preapologizes
  9. preapologizing
  10. preapology
  11. preaponeurotic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preapologize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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