prefrontal
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of prefrontal
Explanation
Use the adjective prefrontal when you're talking about the very front part of the brain. Take care of your prefrontal cortex; it controls your personality. In an anatomy class, you'd gain a lot of information about the prefrontal cortex, since it's a vital section of the brain. The word prefrontal comes up in discussions of non-human animals as well, usually describing their brains, but sometimes in discussions of the skull, specifically the bones in front of a bird's or reptile's eye socket. Prefrontal combines pre-, "before," with frontal, "being in front," emphasizing the far forward location.
Vocabulary lists containing prefrontal
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.
"Experience remodels the brain to bypass that frontal bottleneck. The prefrontal cortex then stays free for whatever else you want to do, increasing your capacity," Riesenhuber explained.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 12, 2026
According to Riesenhuber, transferring a well-learned skill into the temporal cortex frees the prefrontal cortex to focus on new challenges, allowing existing knowledge to serve as the foundation for future learning.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 12, 2026
A study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience showed participants’ brains could automate tasks by offloading them from the prefrontal cortex to the temporal cortex.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Research suggests that trauma can leave the amygdala—the brain’s threat-detection center—chronically overactivated, while dampening the prefrontal cortex, which governs reasoning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
In those situations, teens are more likely to make decisions with the limbic system rather than the prefrontal cortex.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
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.
