Definition of "prolepsis" []

• The anachronistic representation of something as existing before its proper or historical time, as in the precolonial United States. (noun)
• The assignment of something, such as an event or name, to a time that precedes it, as in If you tell the cops, you're a dead man. (noun)
• The use of a descriptive word in anticipation of the act or circumstances that would make it applicable, as dry in They drained the lake dry. (noun)
• The anticipation and answering of an objection or argument before one's opponent has put it forward. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Cognition therefore entails recollection and the ideas of things with which the mind thinks are therefore anticipations - Cudworth adopts the Stoic term prolepsis to denote them."
• "It is from perception that we draw our general ideas by a kind of prolepsis (πρόληψις) an anticipation or laying hold by reason of that which is implied in sensation."
• "So, the logic that brought you to this point, comments etc, should also lead you to fire somebody every Friday and post a story that is part mission statement, and part journalism prolepsis."