Meanings
alternative pre-lapsarian
- Judaismnot comparableChristianityOf, or relating to the period of innocence before the Fall of man; innocent, unspoiled.
Conservative think-tanks have the same dream of return to a prelapsarian innocence.
2010 September 23, “The perils of constitution-worship”, in The Economist4 more examples
It is the prelapsarian Polynesia of free love, noble savagery, Kon Tiki rafting and Easter Island statuary, not the Levi’s-wearing, Toyota-driving, pédalo-pushing, efflorescent-cocktails-in-a-split-coconut-serving pseudo-paradise that awaits latter-day travellers.
2001, Stephen Brown, Marketing – the Retro Revolution, London: SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 139Ideally, individual stories and God's plan share the same final goal, namely, returning to a prelapsarian state of perfect communication with God.
2004, Janet Bertsch, Storytelling in the works of Bunyan, Grimmelshausen, Defoe, and Schnabel, page 4Back in those ancient, prelapsarian days, "girl-on-girl" hadn’t even been invented yet.
2006 April 10, George Saunders, “Nostalgia”, in The New Yorker, archived from the original on 17 Oct 2012Can you really turn a few keyboards outside London's landmarks into the equivalent of a pub honky-tonk for a good old knees-up; a 50s living room where the family would gather around the piano every evening, in some prelapsarian vision of the olden days […]?
2010 June 1, Tom Service, The GuardianSynonyms: antelapsarian, superlapsarian, halcyon
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveOf, or relating to the period of innocence before the Fall of man; innocent, unspoiled.
Origin
- Latinlapsus“fall”
- Englishprelapsarian
From pre- + Latin lapsus (“fall”) + -arian.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish syntiinlankeemusta edeltävä
- syntiinlankeemusta edeltäväinnocent, unspoiled
French prélapsarien
- prélapsarieninnocent, unspoiled
Hungarian édeni, édenkerti
- édeniinnocent, unspoiled
- édenkertiinnocent, unspoiled
- romlatlaninnocent, unspoiled
- bűnbeesés előttiinnocent, unspoiled
Russian догреховный, безгреховный
- догреховный (dogrexovnyj)innocent, unspoiled
- безгреховный (bezgrexovnyj)innocent, unspoiled
Cite this entry
prelapsarian. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/prelapsarian
“prelapsarian.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/prelapsarian. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “prelapsarian,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/prelapsarian.
Source: prelapsarian on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.