preposterous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin praeposterus (“placed in the wrong order, inverted; perverse, absurd”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the suffix -ous.^[2][5][7] Literally "before-behind",^[3][6][8] the Latin word is formed from prae- (“before”) and posterus (“coming after, next”),^[2][3][4][9] itself from post (“after, behind”);^[3][4][9] Ayto calls it a Latin oxymoron.^[9] The American Heritage Dictionary traces post to Proto-Indo-European *apo-.^[4] The OED compares Middle French prepostere (“placed in a wrong order”) (1462) and Italian prepostero (“placed in the wrong order”) (before 1498).^[2] Etymonline and Weekley compare topsy-turvy and the phrase "cart before the horse".^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OED's first record, in a 1533 translation of Erasmus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani, already has both senses: having last what should be first, and contrary to nature, reason or common sense.^[2][10] Barnhart first finds it in 1542, in Udall's translation of Erasmus's Apophthegms,^[5] and Etymonline dates the sense "absurd" to the 1540s and the literal sense to the 1550s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already meant both "back to front" and "absurd", and English took over both senses.^[11] According to Ayto, the notion had developed in Latin from "the wrong way round" through "irrational" to "absurd".^[9] The literal sense appears in Puttenham's Art of English Poesie (1589): "The preposterous is a pardonable fault … We call it by a common saying to set the cart before the horse".^[9] From 1661, in Glanvill, it was also used of an animal with its parts reversed, going tail first.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "having that first which ought to be last; wrong; absurd; perverted", and second, of persons, as "foolish; absurd", quoting Shakespeare's "Preposterous ass!"^[12] The sense gradually shaded into "foolish, ridiculous, stupid",^[3] and it now chiefly means utterly absurd or outrageous,^[2] while the literal meaning has become rare.^[11][2][13] In the 17th century English also had a verb preposterate, to pervert or invert.^[3]

Timeline

• 1533 – having last what should be first; also contrary to nature, reason or common sense.^[2][10]
• 1589 – the preposterous, the figure of speech that sets the cart before the horse, in Puttenham.^[9]
• 1661 – of an animal, having its parts reversed, going tail first.^[2]
• 1755 – of persons, foolish, absurd, in Johnson's dictionary.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous: She dismissed the rumour as preposterous.^[10][14][2]
2. Ridiculous in appearance or manner; grotesque: a preposterous feathered hat.^[10]
3. (rare) Having or putting last what should be first; inverted in order.^[2][10][13]

Word family

• preposterously
• preposterousness
• unpreposterous

Related words

• posterior
• posterity
• postern
• post-
• pre-

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins