prelapsarian
Americanadjective
-
Theology. occurring before the Fall.
the prelapsarian innocence of Eden.
-
characteristic of or pertaining to any innocent or carefree period.
a prelapsarian youth.
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of prelapsarian
First recorded in 1870–75; pre- + -lapsarian, as in infralapsarian, supralapsarian ( def. )
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.
Whatever purity and prelapsarian pleasures I’d lost this second time around, I managed to regain in other ways.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 28, 2026
Bathers are an artistic signal for life crawling onto shore out of the primordial ooze or basking in a pastoral, prelapsarian paradise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2025
“Only music, only a Brahms symphony, comes close” to the sensation of those prelapsarian gallops, she writes.
From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2022
You could say that it’s a prelapsarian paradise, a dream of a bygone America of good manners and affordable delights.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 14, 2019
It’s no wonder that so many listeners have heard in them the sound of some sort of prelapsarian musical Eden, removed from commerce, controversy, the Colonel.
From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2018
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
