prelusoryadj.

1638 E. Reynolds Medit. Last Supper xv. 131 Amongst the Romans their Prelusory fight with dull and blunt weapons were [sic] but introductions to their mortall and bloudy games.

1649 H. Hammond Vindic. Addresse 37 That Argument..is but prælusory and preparative.

1660 R. Allestree Gentlemans Calling Pref. sig. b3 These are but the light prelusory skirmishes to a more dismall Slaughter.

1776 J. Dickinson 1 July in Scribner's Monthly (1876) July 293/1 Without some prelusory trials of our strength, we ought not to commit our country upon an alternative, where to recede would be infamy, and to persist might be destruction.

1876 Littell's Living Age 11 Mar. 691/1 We have received our welcome, and drunk our prelusory schnapps.

1891 C. A. Ward Oracles Nostradamus 240 After these prelusory flourishes..we are now to enter upon a more special theme.

1900 Classical Rev. 14 226/1 He has now followed up these prelusory labours by a new edition of the speech.

1983 MLN 98 1006 He had come down for a prelusory reconnaissance of New York with his then translator and disciple Anthony Wilden.

1847 Webster's Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang. 772/1 Prelusorily, by way of introduction.