Word of the Day

Sunday, July 14, 2002

prelapsarian

\pree-lap-SAIR-ee-uhn\ , adjective;

Pertaining to or characteristic of the time or state before the Fall.

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Quotes:

Because artifice connotes civilization to the Chinese elite, it doesn't have quite the negative meaning it has for Europeans brought up on stories of prelapsarian Eden and on Romantic conceptions of nature.

-- Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism

No visible tourists (apart from ourselves), no hotels or apartments in sight, high rise or otherwise; it was possible to imagine we were in a prelapsarian Mediterranean paradise.

-- Annalena McAfee, "High and dry", The Guardian, March 2, 2002

The mid-twenties were, in general, a prelapsarian period, before the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression of the 1930s.

-- Mark Lawson, "Beautiful and damned", The Guardian, June 26, 1995

Origin:

Prelapsarian is derived from Latin pre-, "before" + lapsus, "fall."