Word.ws English Dictionary

prehumous

prehumous adjective: before death.

Adjective

prehumous (not comparable)

  1. Before death.
    • There are certainly the portraits of men among them who, like the bad king that, according to his prehumous epitaph, never did a good thing, and therefore have no business in the good company in which we find them.1859, “The National Portrait Gallery”, in The Art-Journal, London: James S. Virtue; […], New York, page 348, column 2
    • S. Hartley.—The reading public is only too prone to give posthumous laurels to those to whom it would hardly give prehumous bread. As far as his fame is concerned, William Maccall has the misfortune not to be in his grave. Many run out into the wilderness to meet B. V., and, behold, a greater than...1885 January 24, “To Correspondents”, in Saladin, editor, The Secular Review: A Journal of Agnosticism, volume XVI, number 4, London, page 57, column 2

Examples of prehumous in a sentence

  • Hartley.—The reading public is only too prone to give posthumous laurels to those to whom it would hardly give prehumous bread.1885 January 24, “To Correspondents”, in Saladin, editor, The Secular Review: A Journal of Agnosticism, volume XVI, number 4, London, page...
  • He [William Wilson Corcoran] is a rare instance of prehumous liberality, having given away in his lifetime, it is said on good authority, at least $5,000,000.1888 January 7, “A Veteran Philanthropist”, in Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, volume XXXII, number 1620, page 6, column 1:
  • From the prehumous correspondence of Mr.1918, Vanity Fair, page 110:
  • “Your posthumous awards will make history, John.” / “I prefer prehumous beer and blondes,” Weems said, and cut the motor and they glided[…]1952, The Saturday Evening Post, page 134:

Synonyms of prehumous

Antonyms

Origin of prehumous

By analogy with posthumous, replacing post- with pre-.

Words formed from prehumous

Questions about prehumous

What does prehumous mean?
Prehumous means before death.
How do you use prehumous in a sentence?
Hartley.—The reading public is only too prone to give posthumous laurels to those to whom it would hardly give prehumous bread.
What part of speech is prehumous?
Prehumous is an adjective.

Words near prehumous in the dictionary

  1. prehospitally
  2. prehostility
  3. prehuman
  4. prehumans
  5. prehumiliation
  6. prehumous
  7. prehumously
  8. prehung
  9. prehunting
  10. prehurricane
  11. prehybridisation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prehumous (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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