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
The other idols of those prelapsarian Mets, the rowdies who won it all in ’86, remain staples of New York media, their successes lionized and their sins reconstrued as locker-room foibles.
From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2020
No shade to “Ocean’s 8,” but the “Hustlers” girl gang radiates a lot more campy fun, especially in the prelapsarian years before the recession.
From New York Times ● Sep. 6, 2019
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
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.
