Meanings
adjectivepretheoretical (not comparable)
- not comparablehuman sciencesArising before any theoretical considerations
Let’s grant, as seems plausible, that […] knowledge of what it takes to be a T, according to our pretheoretical notion of Ts, has an important role to play in settling metaphysical disputes about the nature of Ts.
2008 April 23, J. L. Dowell, “Empirical metaphysics: the role of intuitions about possible cases in philosophy”, in Philosophical Studies, volume 140, number 1, →DOI
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*per-
- Proto-Indo-European*preh₂-
- Proto-Indo-European*préh₂i?
- Proto-Italic*prai
- Proto-Italic*prai-
- Latinprae-
- Middle Englishpre-
- Englishpre-
- Englishtheoretical
- Englishpretheoretical
From pre- + theoretical.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
pretheoretical. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pretheoretical
MLA
“pretheoretical.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pretheoretical. Accessed November 2, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pretheoretical,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pretheoretical.
Source: pretheoretical on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.