Word.ws English Dictionary

prelap

prelap noun: a film editing technique in which the dialogue from the next scene precedes the cut, and the beginning of the dialogue is heard in the outgoing scene.

Noun

prelap (countable and uncountable, plural prelaps)

  1. A film editing technique in which the dialogue from the next scene precedes the cut, and the beginning of the dialogue is heard in the outgoing scene.
    • Some aspects of the editing were groundbreaking: In his book “Film Editing: History, Theory and Practice” (2001), Don Fairservice pointed out that “Stagecoach” contained one of the earliest uses — maybe even the first — of the now-commonplace technique called a prelap, in which as one scene ends...2022 October 29, Gavin Edwards, “Overlooked No More: Dorothy Spencer, Film Editor Sought Out by Big Directors”, in The New York Times

Forms of prelap

pluralprelaps
alternative formpre-lap

Origin of prelap

From pre- + lap. Compare overlap.

Questions about prelap

What does prelap mean?
Prelap means a film editing technique in which the dialogue from the next scene precedes the cut, and the beginning of the dialogue is heard in the outgoing scene.
What part of speech is prelap?
Prelap is a noun.
What is the plural of prelap?
The plural of prelap is prelaps.

Words near prelap in the dictionary

  1. prelamination
  2. prelamins
  3. prelanding
  4. prelanguage
  5. prelanguages
  6. prelap
  7. prelaparoscopic
  8. prelaps
  9. prelapsarian
  10. prelarvae
  11. prelarval

Source and license

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