precovery
precovery noun: the use of previously gathered data (especially photographic images) to recover a recently discovered object (typically a small solar system body).
Noun
precovery (plural precoveries)
- The use of previously gathered data (especially photographic images) to recover a recently discovered object (typically a small solar system body).
- If you look for your new object after discovery, it's called "recovery". [...] if you find your new object in some old data that someone took before you discovered your object, it's called a "precovery".
- Quaoar [...] is a Trans-Neptunian object orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt. It was discovered on June 4, 2002 by astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the California Institute of Technology [...] The earliest precovery turned out to be a May 25, 1954 plate from Palomar Observatory.
- The act of resting before a long night, weekend or season of binge drinking.
Forms of precovery
| plural | precoveries |
|---|
Origin of precovery
Blend of pre- + recovery.
Questions about precovery
- What does precovery mean?
- Precovery means the use of previously gathered data (especially photographic images) to recover a recently discovered object (typically a small solar system body).
- What part of speech is precovery?
- Precovery is a noun.
- What is the plural of precovery?
- The plural of precovery is precoveries.
Words near precovery in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: precovery (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-precovery.wav.
Cite this entry: “precovery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/precovery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.