Research
Anticipating and pre-emptively answering a counter-argument; in rhetoric, addressing an objection before the audience raises it strengthens the case and shows intellectual honesty; in narrative, the same word names a flash-forward to a later event.
Merriam-Webster defines it as “anticipation”, specifically “the representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently existing or accomplished”, and also “the application of an adjective to a noun in anticipation of the result of the action of the verb”. From Greek prolēpsis, from prolambanein, to take beforehand — pro-, before, plus lambanein, to take. First recorded 1578. The rhetorical use described above is that root applied to argument: taking the objection beforehand.
Merriam-Webster is cited here as the dictionary of record. Where a lexicon entry defines a word rather than a position, a dictionary is the primary source for it — there is no other body with standing over what a word means. The reading of how the term is used in research writing, above, is this lexicon’s own.
Rewritten from a truncated AJG archive entry, August 2026.
Developed by Amit Jain at allfrontierglobal.com
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Developed by Amit Jain at allfrontierglobal.com · purposed.in · purposed · purposed2 · merchcomp.com · uuka.org
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