Words & WritingGreek → English
Prologue
/ˈproʊlɒɡ/noun
An opening section that sets up what follows in a book, play or film.
The Greek roots
πρό
pró
before
λόγος
lógos
speech, words
Literally: “the words before”
The story of the word
In Athenian tragedy the prólogos was everything spoken before the chorus first came on, and Euripides was mocked for making his so formulaic that a critic could finish any of them. Latin comedy kept the term and gave it to an actor in costume. English had it by Chaucer, whose General Prologue is the part of the Canterbury Tales most people actually finish.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
epiloguemonologuedialoguelogo
In a sentence
Skip the prologue; the book starts properly in chapter two.