preformant

See also: préformant

English

Etymology

From English pre- (prefix meaning ‘before; physically in front of’) + Latin fōrmāns (“fashioning, forming, shaping”) + English -ant (suffix forming agent nouns from verbs), modelled after prefix.[1] Fōrmāns is the present participle of fōrmō (“to fashion, form, format, shape”), from fōrma (“appearance, figure, form, shape; beauty; design, outline, plan; model, mould, pattern, stamp; (figuratively) kind, manner, sort”) (further etymology uncertain) + -ō (suffix forming first-conjugation verbs).

Pronunciation

Noun

preformant (plural preformants)

  1. (archaic, rare) Chiefly in Semitic languages: Synonym of preformative (“a formative letter, syllable, etc., at the beginning of a word”)
    • 1822, William Harris, “Verbs”, in Elements of the Chaldee Language, Intended as a Supplement to the Hebrew Grammars, and as a General Introduction to the Aramean Dialects, London: […] William Baynes and Son, […], →OCLC, page 14:
      Verbs are declined through the persons by preformants and terminations, according to the following table, in which the blanks represent the radicals of a perfect verb.

References
  1. Compare “preformant, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2007; “preformant, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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