Word.ws English Dictionary

prelexical

prelexical adjective: before the lexical stage.

Adjective

prelexical (not comparable)

  1. Before the lexical stage.
    • Of particular relevance is the category of prelexical comment, which comprises the non-lexical utterance of standard phonemes accompanied by strong visual or gestural indicators of attentional focus, such as pointing, touching, or intent gaze.2001, D. Clarke, Perspectives on Practice and Meaning in Mathematics and Science Classrooms, page 234

Origin of prelexical

From pre- + lexical.

Questions about prelexical

What does prelexical mean?
Prelexical means before the lexical stage.
What part of speech is prelexical?
Prelexical is an adjective.

Words near prelexical in the dictionary

  1. prelethal
  2. preleukaemia
  3. preleukaemic
  4. preleukemia
  5. preleukemic
  6. prelexical
  7. prelexically
  8. prelibation
  9. prelibations
  10. preliberal
  11. preliberation

Source and license

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