Word.ws English Dictionary

prebend

/ˈprɛbənd/

prebend noun: a stipend paid to a canon of a cathedral.

Noun

prebend (plural prebends)

  1. (obsolete) A stipend paid to a canon of a cathedral.
  2. (obsolete) The property or other source of this endowment.
    • He is said to have added prebends to Southwell; it is more probable that he gave estates to the church which were afterwards made into separate prebends.1885, “Aldred (d.1069)”, in Leslie Stephen, editor, Dictionary of National Biography, William Hunt, Volume 1
  3. Political patronage employment.
  4. (obsolete) A prebendary.
    • a lease of the prebend of Withingtonc. 1593, Francis Bacon, letter to Sir Thomas Coneysby

Verb

IPA/priˈbɛnd/

prebend (third-person singular simple present prebends, present participle prebending, simple past and past participle prebent)

  1. (transitive) To bend in advance.
    • For large and/or dense bones compression plate fixation achieves absolute stability but the fragments have to be in contact remote to the plate by prebending the plate.2006, Michael Wagner, Robert Frigg, AO Manual of Fracture Management: Internal Fixators, page 14

Forms of prebend

Noun
pluralprebends
Verb
third-person singular presentprebends
present participleprebending
past participleprebent
pastprebent

Origin of prebend

From Middle French prebende, from Medieval Latin prebenda, from Late Latin praebenda, from Latin praebendus, verbal adjective of praebere. Doublet of provender.

From pre- + bend.

Words formed from prebend

Questions about prebend

What does prebend mean?
Prebend means a stipend paid to a canon of a cathedral.
What part of speech is prebend?
Prebend can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce prebend?
Prebend is pronounced /ˈprɛbənd/.
What is the plural of prebend?
The plural of prebend is prebends.

Words near prebend in the dictionary

  1. prebeginners
  2. prebeliever
  3. prebelievers
  4. prebellum
  5. prebeloved
  6. prebend
  7. prebendal
  8. prebendalism
  9. prebendalisms
  10. prebendaries
  11. prebendary

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prebend (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “prebend.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prebend. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.