Prepone

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To reschedule or shift an appointment or event to occur sooner than originally planned
2. To arrange for something to happen at an earlier time than was first intended
3. To advance the timing of a scheduled activity so that it takes place before the initial set time

Etymology: "Prepone" is a blend, and its story is mostly one of deliberate tidiness: it was formed in 1913 by combining the prefix "pre-" with "postpone," so that "prepone" would mean the opposite of "postpone." Its shape is the clue. English already had a verb meaning to put off to a later time, and speakers wanted a matching verb for moving something earlier, the way "pre-" and "post-" sit as mirror images in words like "prewar" and "postwar." The word is not a Latin coinage in the form it takes. "Postpone" came into English from Latin "postpōnere," meaning "to place after," and the blend borrowed its back half from that verb while the front half, "pre-," supplies the reversal. The source also links the base to Latin "praepōnō," meaning "to place before," which is the classical root of the same sense of earlier placement. The 1913 date is the first recorded use, so the word is a twentieth-century invention rather than something ancient speakers would recognize.

Synonyms: advance, reschedule

Antonyms: postpone, delay