prelude

plural preludes · alternative prælude

1. An introductory or preliminary performance or event.

   Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator from California, called it a “very dangerous escalation and a prelude to potential conflict”.

   2025 December 11, Joseph Gedeon, quoting Adam Schiff, “US lawmakers condemn seizure of Venezuelan oil tanker: ‘Trump is sleepwalking us into a war’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: preface

2. entertainmentA short, free-form piece of music, originally one serving as an introduction to a longer and more complex piece; later, starting with the Romantic period, generally a stand-alone piece.First known use 1650s

   Synonyms: intrada, overture

3. computingA standard module or library of subroutines and functions to be imported, generally by default, into a program.

   In the same way that Rust has a general prelude that brings certain types and functions into scope automatically, the std::io module has its own prelude of common types and functions you'll need when working with I/O.

   2018, Steve Klabnik, Carol Nichols, The Rust Programming Language, No Starch Press, →ISBN, page 232

4. figurativelyA forerunner to anything.

   Swimmings of the head and intestinal pains seemed the prelude of dissolution.

   1869, William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Chambers's Miscellany of Instructive & Entertaining Tracts, page 2

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   On the other hand, the nationalitarian phenomenon is one in which the struggle against the imperialist powers of occupation has as its object, beyond the clearing of the national territory, the independence and sovereignty of the national State, uprooting in depth the positions of the ex-colonial power— the reconquest of the power of decision in all domains of national life, the prelude to that reconquest of identity which is at the heart of the renaissance undertaken on the basis of fundamental national demands, and ceaselessly contested, by every means available, on every level, and notably on the internal level'.

   1981, Anouar Abdel-Malek, Social Dialectics: Nation and Revolution, page 13

present singular third person preludes · participle present preluding · participle past preluded · past preluded · alternative prælude

1. To introduce something, as a prelude.
2. To play an introduction or prelude; to give a prefatory performance.

   The musicians preluded on their instruments.

   1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC

   1 more example

   We are preluding too largely, and must come at once to the point.

   1829, Francis Jeffrey, “Heman's Poems”, in The Edinburgh Review October 1829