Word.ws English Dictionary

preemptively

preemptively adverb: in a preemptive manner.

Adverb

preemptively (comparative more preemptively, superlative most preemptively)

  1. In a preemptive manner.
    • If you feel strongly about Scullying this situation and avoiding anyone who believes in made-up sky magic, that’s your prerogative, but you should know that you’re preemptively x’ing out a LOT of the queer population you might otherwise click with!2019 February 19, Rachel, “How to Talk to Your Hot Gay Crush About Astrology When You Don't Believe In It”, in Autostraddle
    • The GOP’s aggressive approach in court goes hand in hand with former President Donald Trump’s strategy of using the courts to preemptively cast doubt on the 2024 results.2024 October 28, Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole, “GOP’s aggressive court strategy sets the stage to cast doubt on the 2024 results”, in CNN, archived from the original on 09 Oct 2025

Forms of preemptively

comparativemore preemptively
superlativemost preemptively
alternative formpre-emptively
alternative formpreëmptively

Origin of preemptively

From preemptive + -ly.

Questions about preemptively

What does preemptively mean?
Preemptively means in a preemptive manner.
What part of speech is preemptively?
Preemptively is an adverb.

Words near preemptively in the dictionary

  1. preemptive right
  2. preemptive rights
  3. preemptive self-defence
  4. preemptive strike
  5. preemptive strikes
  6. preemptively
  7. preemptor
  8. preemptorally
  9. preemptorily
  10. preemptors
  11. preemptory

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preemptively (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: En-us-preemptively.ogg.

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