Prep

How to spell prep

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce prep

What does prep mean?

1. verbTo prepare something or someone, or to get ready for an event or task.
2. nounThe work of getting ready for something, especially cooking or study.
3. nounA scheduled period of homework or supervised private study at school.

Prep in a sentence

• verb

  The nurses prep the patient for surgery early in the morning.

• noun

  Most of the dinner prep was done the night before.

• noun

  The boys finished their maths during evening prep in the library.

• verb

  She likes to prep all her ingredients before she starts cooking.

• noun

  Good prep saved them hours during the busy lunch service.

• noun

  After supper the pupils went straight to prep until eight o'clock.

Where does prep come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Prep is a clipped, informal shortening of either 'preparation' or 'preparatory', both of which trace back through Old French to the Latin praeparare, meaning 'to make ready beforehand'. That Latin verb was built from prae, meaning 'before', and parare, meaning 'to make ready' or 'to furnish', the same root that gives us 'repair' and 'apparatus'. The full words entered English in the late Middle Ages, but the snappy abbreviation 'prep' is much younger, surfacing in nineteenth-century British school slang for a set period of supervised homework or private study. From the schoolroom it spread outward, first to 'prep school' and then, especially in American usage, into a general verb meaning to get something or someone ready. Because it is a clipping rather than a compound, the spelling is mercifully simple: just the first syllable of the longer word, with a single p at each end.

How the word is built

• clipping of prepare / preparation (prae- 'before'
• parare 'make ready')