Word.ws English Dictionary

prelims

prelims noun: the preliminary front matter of a book; all content preceding the main text or work itself. Also the plural of prelim.

Noun

prelims

  1. The preliminary front matter of a book; all content preceding the main text or work itself.
    • A book usually consists of three sections: preliminary matter (also called prelims or front matter), the main text, and end matter. All books have some kind of prelims, all have a text, and most works of non-fiction have end matter.2014, “1.1 General Principles”, in “The parts of a book”, in New Oxford Style Manual, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 1
    Synonyms:
    front matter
  2. (collective, uncountable, Oxford University slang) Preliminary examinations taken as a whole, as sat by an individual or year group.
    • Are you done with prelims yet?

Also used as

prelims is also the plural of prelim.

Synonyms of prelims

Questions about prelims

What does prelims mean?
Prelims means the preliminary front matter of a book; all content preceding the main text or work itself.
What part of speech is prelims?
Prelims is a noun.

Words near prelims in the dictionary

  1. preliminatory
  2. prelimit
  3. prelimited
  4. prelimiting
  5. prelimits
  6. prelims
  7. prelinearized
  8. prelinen
  9. prelingual
  10. prelingually
  11. prelinguistic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prelims (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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