prelapsarian

English

WOTD – 21 April 2011

Before the fall, in the carefree days in the Garden of Eden.

Alternative forms

• pre-lapsarian

Etymology

From pre- +‎ Latin lapsus (“fall”) +‎ -arian.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɹiːlapˈsɛːɹɪən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Adjective

prelapsarian (not comparable)

1. (Judaism, Christianity) Of, or relating to the period of innocence before the Fall of man; innocent, unspoiled.
   • 2001, Stephen Brown, Marketing – the Retro Revolution, London: SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 139:

     It is the prelapsarian Polynesia of free love, noble savagery, Kon Tiki rafting and Easter Island statuary, not the Levi’s-wearing, Toyota-driving, pédalo-pushing, efflorescent-cocktails-in-a-split-coconut-serving pseudo-paradise that awaits latter-day travellers.

   • 2004, Janet Bertsch, Storytelling in the works of Bunyan, Grimmelshausen, Defoe, and Schnabel, page 4:

     Ideally, individual stories and God's plan share the same final goal, namely, returning to a prelapsarian state of perfect communication with God.

   • 2010 June 1, Tom Service, The Guardian:

     Can you really turn a few keyboards outside London's landmarks into the equivalent of a pub honky-tonk for a good old knees-up; a 50s living room where the family would gather around the piano every evening, in some prelapsarian vision of the olden days […] ?

   • 2010 September 23, “The perils of constitution-worship”, in The Economist:

     Conservative think-tanks have the same dream of return to a prelapsarian innocence.

Synonyms

• (Christianity): antelapsarian, superlapsarian
• (carefree period): halcyon

Antonyms

• postlapsarian

Coordinate terms

• antediluvian

Related terms

• lapsarian
• postlapsarian

Translations

innocent, unspoiled

• Finnish: syntiinlankeemusta edeltävä
• French: prélapsarien
• Hungarian: édeni (hu), édenkerti, romlatlan (hu), bűnbeesés előtti
• Russian: догреховный (ru) (dogrexovnyj), безгреховный (ru) (bezgrexovnyj)

See also

• Lapsarianism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Fall of Man on Wikipedia.Wikipedia