prothesis

/ˈpɹɒθəsɪs/US/ˈpɹɔθəsɪs/

prothesis noun: the prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as in Spanish esfera from Greek (via Latin) sphaera (“sphere”) (without prothesis the word would have become *sfera).

Noun (1)

prothesis (countable and uncountable, plural protheses)

(rhetoric) The prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as in Spanish esfera from Greek (via Latin) sphaera (“sphere”) (without prothesis the word would have become *sfera).

Synonyms:

prosthesis

Noun (2)

prothesis (countable and uncountable, plural protheses)

The preparation and preliminary oblation of the Eucharistic bread and wine in the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches.
(broadly) Credence table.

prothesis meaning in Arabic and Persian

prothesis in Arabic

the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word without changing the word's meaning or the rest of its structure: إِبْدَاء ʔibdāʔ

prothesis in Persian

the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word without changing the word's meaning or the rest of its structure: پیشهشت piš-hašt, piš-hešt

Synonyms of prothesis

prosthesis
proskomide

Antonyms

aphesis

Forms of prothesis

plural	protheses

Origin of prothesis

From Late Latin prothesis, prosthesis, alteration (dropping the ‘s’) from Ancient Greek πρόσθεσις (prósthesis, “addition, augmentation”), (English prosthesis) from προστίθημι (prostíthēmi, “to add”), from πρός (prós, “towards”) + τίθημι (títhēmi, “to place”), from Proto-Indo-European *próti, *préti + *dʰédʰeh₁- (“to be putting, to be placing”). However, often confused for a descendant of the Ancient Greek word πρόθεσις (próthesis, “a preposing, preposition”) (without the σ (s)), which is instead the source of a different term – see alternative etymology, below.

From Ancient Greek πρόθεσις (próthesis, “a preposing”), from προτίθημι (protíthēmi, “to prepose”), from πρό (pró, “before”) + τίθημι (títhēmi, “to place”), from Proto-Indo-European *pro- + *dʰédʰeh₁ti (“to be putting, to be placing”).

Words formed from prothesis

Words that rhyme with prothesis

Questions about prothesis

What does prothesis mean?: Prothesis means the prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as in Spanish esfera from Greek (via Latin) sphaera (“sphere”) (without prothesis the word would have become *sfera).
What is prothesis in Arabic?: Prothesis in Arabic is إِبْدَاء (ʔibdāʔ). See Prothesis meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is prothesis?: Prothesis is a noun.
How do you pronounce prothesis?: Prothesis is pronounced /ˈpɹɒθəsɪs/ (UK).
What is the plural of prothesis?: The plural of prothesis is protheses.

Words near prothesis in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: prothesis (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prothesis.wav.

Cite this entry: “prothesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prothesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.