Word.ws English Dictionary

premortem

premortem adjective: before death.

Adjective

premortem (not comparable)

  1. Before death.
    • Reappearing, tape-measure in hand, he went into the bedroom and took slow and accurate measurements, whistling delightedly to find that his pre-mortem theoretical calculations and post-mortem practical measurements hardly varied.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 126

Adverb

premortem (not comparable)

  1. Before death.

Noun

premortem (plural premortems)

  1. An analysis of potential failure before it happens.
    • Military researchers have been testing the use of premortems to critique military plans. Where, when, and why might coordination break down? How might the breakdowns be rectified at the time?2007, Gershon Tenenbaum, Robert C. Eklund, Handbook of Sport Psychology, page 279

Synonyms of premortem

Antonyms

Forms of premortem

Adjective
alternative formpre mortem
alternative formpre-mortem
alternative formprae-mortem
alternative formpræ-mortem
Noun
pluralpremortems

Origin of premortem

From pre- (“before”) + Latin mortem (accusative singular of mors (“death”)), after post mortem.

Questions about premortem

What does premortem mean?
Premortem means before death.
What part of speech is premortem?
Premortem can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.

Words near premortem in the dictionary

  1. premorbidity
  2. premorbidly
  3. premorning
  4. premorse
  5. premortal
  6. premortem
  7. premortems
  8. premortuary
  9. Premos
  10. premosaic
  11. premotion

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: premortem (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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