pre-opeˈration, n. and a. rare.
A. n. [pre- A. 2.]
1. Operation or working beforehand.
| 1622 Donne Serm. (ed. Alford) V. 109 So there is a good sense of co-operation, and post-operation; but pre-operation, that we should work, before God work upon us, can admit no good interpretation. 1655 Nicholas Papers (Camden) II. 248 He reasons that such a determinacion could not be grounded on what the former printes spake, and accordingly he makes pre-operation. a 1779 Warburton Div. Legat. ix. i. Wks. 1788 III. 649 It would be trifling to speak of a pre-ordination, which was not to be understood of a pre-operation. |
2. A preoperational activity.
| 1971 Nature 13 Aug. 456/1 For some time, it has been believed that young children are unable to form transitive inferences about quantity until they pass the stage of logical preoperations at about 7 yr old. |
B. adj. [pre- B. 2.] Prior to a surgical operation.
| 1976 J. Snow Cricket Rebel 107, I relaxed as the pre-operation drugs took effect and I moved into another world. 1978 Detroit Free Press 16 Apr. d4/2 This way, except for a pre⁓operation visit, ‘I just see them unconscious.’ |