prearrange
Americanverb (used with object)
Other Word Forms
- prearrangement noun
Etymology
Origin of prearrange
Explanation
When you plan something well in advance, you prearrange it. If a reporter prearranges every interview question with a politician, the answers will probably come out sounding too polished and phony. Whenever people agree on or organize the details of something before it happens, they prearrange it. Many things in life benefit from being prearranged: spies need to prearrange meeting places and code words, and new parents usually prearrange gear like car seats and diapers before the birth of their child. Prearrange adds the "before" prefix pre- to arrange, from the Old French a, "to," and rangier, "set in a row."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“You can’t really prearrange, in coaching, where you go.”
From Washington Post • Dec. 7, 2018
But Altman welcomed actors' contributions, and if he didn't prearrange everything in the manner of a Kubrick or Hitchcock, he would post-arrange them once he saw what he had.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 5, 2015
“Some people feel like if they come in and prearrange for their burial then they’re going to die the next day,” he says.
From Salon • Oct. 7, 2012
His basic insight was that it’s easy enough to choreograph a simple pattern of behavior, but impossible to prearrange a sufficiently complicated one.
From Scientific American • Jan. 30, 2012
Yet it must be observed that, in order to deceive themselves, men prearrange what seem to be hasty errors, but are really secretly considered actions.
From The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Schopenhauer, Arthur
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
