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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

prelapsarian en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /pɹiːlapˈsɛːɹɪən/ (UK)
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From pre- + Latin lapsus (“fall”) + -arian.

Meanings

  1. (Judaism, not-comparable) Of, or relating to the period of innocence before the Fall of man; innocent, unspoiled.
    • Back 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 2012:
    • Conservative think-tanks have the same dream of return to a prelapsarian innocence. 2010 September 23, “The perils of constitution-worship”, in The Economist:
    • 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 139:
    • Can 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 Guardian:
    • Ideally, 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 4:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
pre-lapsarian alternative lexicographic

Antonyms

postlapsarian

Coordinates

antediluvian

Relateds

postlapsarian · lapsarian

Synonyms

superlapsarian · halcyon (carefree period) · antelapsarian

Translations (8)

ru безгреховный (innocent, unspoiled) · hu bűnbeesés előtti (innocent, unspoiled) · hu romlatlan (innocent, unspoiled) · fi syntiinlankeemusta edeltävä (innocent, unspoiled) · fr prélapsarien (innocent, unspoiled) · ru догреховный (innocent, unspoiled) · hu édenkerti (innocent, unspoiled) · hu édeni (innocent, unspoiled)