Standard Lemma guide

prealgebra

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A school (in the US, middle school) course that introduces students to concepts needed to learn algebra.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: US, uncountable

Topics: education

Examples

  • 2000, Alfred S. Posamentier, Making Pre-Algebra Come Alive, Sage Publications (Corwin Press), page 1, In most secondary school curricula, pre-algebra is the last course in which specific attention is paid to multiplication, division, squares, cubes, and primes. Thereafter, these skills and operations are pretty much taken for granted.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A particular form of Lie algebra; also applied analogously to other types of algebra.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable

Topics: mathematics, sciences

Examples

  • 2006, Oswald Wyler, Algebraic Theories of Continuous Lattices, Bernhard Banaschewski, Rudolf-Eberhard Hoffmann (editors), Continuous Lattices, Springer, Lecture Notes in Mathematics 871, page 398, Let mathsf f:( mathsf A,α)→( mathsf B,β) be a morphism of prealgebras.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *per- Proto-Indo-European *preh2- Proto-Indo-European *-i Proto-Indo-European *préh2i? Proto-Italic *prai Proto-Italic *prai- Latin prae-lbor. Middle English pre- English pre- Arabic جَبَرَ (jabara) Arabic الْجَبْر (al-jabr)bor. Medieval Latin algebrabor. English algebra English prealgebra From pre- + algebra.