Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An introduction; a preface.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To preface.
- noun A preface; introduction; preamble; preliminary observations prefixed to a book or writing.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb obsolete To preface.
- noun Preface; introduction; preliminary observations; prelude.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
introduction ,preface orpreamble .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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This by the way; but what is more to the purpose is that my first grief for a beloved comrade had expressed itself in the words which were to form the "proem" of my first book --
The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 An Illustrated Monthly Various
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Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either piety or repentance; yet two years after her death, St. Theodora is celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem.v. 58 40
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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Revolutionary growls and mutterings are common experiences to most intimate workers in the nether places of misery and grinding poverty, and the story told in the proem is but the synthesis of many such experiences.
Archive 2009-08-01 Steve 2009
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Literary forms emerge say, the novel after Don Quixote, the proem, flash fiction, icky meta-fiction.
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Revolutionary growls and mutterings are common experiences to most intimate workers in the nether places of misery and grinding poverty, and the story told in the proem is but the synthesis of many such experiences.
Henry Lazarus Steve 2009
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And the proem to book 6, in praising the city of Athens for the gifts of civilisation, adds that these are, nevertheless, dwarfed by that city's greatest gift to mankind, Epicurus and his philosophy.
Lucretius Sedley, David 2008
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At 1. 921-50 (lines which later recur in part as the proem to book 4)
Lucretius Sedley, David 2008
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Readers, as they progress further into the poem, are no doubt expected to accumulate the appropriate materials for understanding the proem as in tune with the true Epicurean message, but there is little agreement as to how this is meant to be achieved.
Lucretius Sedley, David 2008
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This long proem, prefixed to a work intended not to have any, may, however, serve to show how human purposes in the most trifling, as well as the most important affairs, are liable to be controlled by the course of events.
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Kabul and the King of Khorasan appearing in the proem.
jaime_d commented on the word proem
from Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus"
January 11, 2009
qms commented on the word proem
They say that you can’t write a poem.
So set yourself down and you show ‘em!
Give ‘em rhythm and rhyme
And make it sublime,
With epilogue, footnotes and proem.
October 24, 2017