preview
Americannoun
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an earlier or previous view.
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an advance showing of a motion picture, play, etc., before its public opening.
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an advance showing of brief scenes in a motion picture, television show, etc., for purposes of advertisement.
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anything that gives an advance idea or impression of something to come.
verb (used with object)
noun
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an advance or preliminary view or sight
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an advance showing before public presentation of a film, art exhibition, etc, usually before an invited audience of celebrities and journalists
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a public performance of a play before the official first night
verb
Other Word Forms
- unpreviewed adjective
Etymology
Origin of preview
First recorded in 1600–10; 1920–25 preview for def. 2; pre- + view
Explanation
A preview gives you a look at something that hasn't been released yet. You see lots of previews at the movies. If you've been to a movie lately, chances are you saw plenty of previews — little highlights of upcoming movies that are designed to make you want to see them. Any little snippet designed to get you excited about something to come can be called a preview. If you're writing a novel, you could give someone a preview by reading them a few lines. And you're lucky enough to see a show before it opens to the public, you're previewing it.
Vocabulary lists containing preview
Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: pre-
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Power Prefix: Pre-
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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.
The meeting comes a week after the firm released its Claude Mythos preview, an AI tool that the company claims can outperform humans at some hacking and cyber-security tasks.
From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026
Cruise was at CinemaCon earlier in the week to preview a very different film, Digger, in which he plays a grey-haired oil baron who has to clean up his environmental mess.
From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026
Anthropic has warned that the model — which was accidentally leaked in March and is now in limited preview to select companies — is its most powerful yet and could have serious cybersecurity ramifications.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 16, 2026
“It’s really a preview of what communities across the country are going to face,” Morrill said.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 13, 2026
"Mother says she wanted the whole court to preview our new line of scents, just in time for the queen's presentation of toilette-box allotments for the new year."
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
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.
