presentence
presentence adjective: occurring before or in preparation for a criminal sentence.
Adjective
presentence (not comparable)
- Occurring before or in preparation for a criminal sentence.
- "Pulitzer's request"--Marshall would eventually write--"is both novel and complex, pitting the public's right to know […] against the traditional confidentiality of presentence investigation materials."1988 October 14, Michael Miner, “Local Paper Does Good; Quayle Watching”, in Chicago Reader
- Synonyms:
- presentencing
Verb
presentence (third-person singular simple present presentences, present participle presentencing, simple past and past participle presentenced)
- To sentence in advance.
- […] he was conscious to himself that he had prejudged, preconvicted, and even presentenced the Man whom he tried, months before he heard his case, as is demonstrated by his threat to Mrs. MILBANK "that he would send him into penal servitude!" […]1874, The Englishman, volume 1, page 393
Noun
presentence (plural presentences)
- A sentence-like utterance that precedes the development of properly grammatical sentences.
Synonyms of presentence
Forms of presentence
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | presentences |
| present participle | presentencing |
| past participle | presentenced |
| past | presentenced |
| Noun | |
| plural | presentences |
Origin of presentence
From pre- + sentence.
Questions about presentence
- What does presentence mean?
- Presentence means occurring before or in preparation for a criminal sentence.
- What part of speech is presentence?
- Presentence can be an adjective, a verb or a noun.
Words near presentence in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: presentence (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “presentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/presentence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.