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June 12, 2023 Tweet Word of the Week Like Word of the Week on Facebook


Word of the Week--"foreword"
Definition--
an introduction to a book, often by a writer other than the author; preface.
Discussion--The foreword to a book often provides useful insights and a different perspective on the material than offered by the author. I prefer to read the foreword last, after I've read and interpreted the book myself. As you'll see below, foreword means what it sounds like it means--the word that comes before. This meaning is quite different from its homophone forward, which has nothing to do with writing and books and prefaces.
 
Etymology--foreword is a translation of the German Vorwort, which means the earlier word. The Latin for preface is praefatio, which may be the model from which the German word is derived.
 
In all the translations below, you can see the equivalent of the meaning first or early word, although Italian appears not to have a direct equivalent, although Italian does include an equivalent for preface.

   Foreign Translations
German: Vorwort (nt)
Dutch: voorwoord (het)
French: avant-propos
Italian: introduzione
Spanish: pr�logo
 

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