Etymologically
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prologue

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈpɹəʊlɒɡ/[1]
  • US: /ˈpɹoʊlɔɡ/, /ˈpɹoʊlɑɡ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English proloug, later prolog and prologe,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman prologe, also prologue,[4][5] and directly borrowed from Latin prologus (“introduction to a play; its speaker”),[4][6][2] from Ancient Greek πρόλογος (prólogos, “introduction to a play”),[4][6][7] formed from προ- (pro-, “before”) and λόγος (lógos, “speech”).[4][8][9] Etymologically it is "a speech beforehand";[6] the Greek noun comes from the verb for "to speak", from Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to collect, gather”), whose derivatives came to mean "to speak", as if to pick out words.[6][8] In continental Old French the form prologe is recorded from about 1175 and prologue from the early 13th century,[4] and the Anglo-Norman word, meaning a prologue, preface or discourse, from the first third of the 12th century.[5] The Latin word had already been used in Old English by Byrhtferth, who glossed it forespræc.[4] The same Latin noun gave prólogo, prólogo, pròleg and prologo.[4] The verb is formed from the noun.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

An introduction to a narrative or text: before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi, in the form proloug,[2][10] and about 1350 in the OED, which first finds it in a version of the Apocalypse of St John.[4] Etymonline dates it to the early 14th century.[6]

Semantic evolution

In Greek the word meant the introduction to a play, in Hellenistic Greek also the person who spoke it, and in Byzantine Greek the introduction to a speech.[4] In English it was first the preface to a text, especially the speech, usually in verse, that opens a play.[4][6] The figurative sense, an act or event that leads up to something, appears before 1586 in Sidney's Arcadia,[4] or by the 1590s according to Etymonline.[6] The sense "the actor who speaks the prologue" is recorded from 1579, and the OED notes that French does not seem to have it until 1636.[4] Johnson (1755) defined the word as a preface or an introduction to any discourse or performance.[11] The verb, to introduce or precede, is first found in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well (before 1616), and the first OED dictionary noted that it was once stressed on the second syllable.[4] Since 1973 cycling has used the word for a very short time trial that opens a race of several stages.[4]

Timeline

  • before 1325 – proloug, an introduction to a narrative.[2]
  • c. 1350 – the preface or introduction to a text; the opening speech of a play.[4]
  • c. 1385 – the forms prolog and prologe.[2]
  • 1579 – the character who delivers the prologue.[4]
  • before 1586 – figurative, an introductory act or event.[4] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1590s.[6]
  • before 1616 – verb, to introduce or precede.[4]
  • 1701 – verb, to provide a text with a prologue.[4]
  • 1973 – cycling, a short opening time trial.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An introductory section of a book, poem, piece of music or other work; a preface.[12][3][4]
  2. A speech, often in verse, addressed to the audience at the start of a play; compare epilogue.[3][12][4]
  3. The actor who speaks such a speech.[12][3][4]
  4. An act or event that leads up to something else; a prelude: The border skirmishes were a prologue to war.[12][3][4]
  5. In early opera, an introductory scene in which a narrator outlines the action, or a short separate piece played before the opera.[12]
  6. (cycling) A very short time trial held as the first stage of a race of several stages.[4]

Verb

  1. To introduce something, or provide it with a prologue.[3][4]
  2. To come before something as its introduction.[4]

Word family

  • prologuist
  • prologuelike
  • prologuize

Usage notes

The spelling prolog is a less common variant,[3] found especially in American English.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins