proface
proface interjection: a familiar salutation or welcome offered by a host before a meal or drinks are served.
Interjection
- A familiar salutation or welcome offered by a host before a meal or drinks are served.
- Sweet sir, sit; I’ll be with you anon; most sweet sir, Master Page, good Master Page, sit. Proface! What you want in meat, we’ll have in drink.c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
- Gloria deo, sirs proface,
Attend me now whilst I say grace.1602, Thomas Heywood, A pleasant conceited comedie, wherein is shewed, how a man may chuse a good wife from a bad, London: Mathew Lawe
Origin of proface
From Middle French bon prou vous fasse (“may [it] do you much good”).
Questions about proface
- What does proface mean?
- Proface means a familiar salutation or welcome offered by a host before a meal or drinks are served.
- What part of speech is proface?
- Proface is an interjection.
Words near proface in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: proface (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: “proface.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/proface. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.