premature

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Taking place earlier than anticipated, prepared for.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

preemuhchuur

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹiməˈtʃʊɹ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

Taking place earlier than anticipated, prepared for, or desired.
informal
Suffering from premature ejaculation.
Occurring before a state of readiness or maturity has arrived.

noun

An infant born prematurely.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency: Moderately Common
Typical Use: Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Taking place earlier than anticipated, prepared for, or desired.

Used this way, premature is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: No strong connotation
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use premature

“We decided that it was premature to announce the news just yet.”

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Suffering

premature ejaculation

Born

premature birth

Infant

premature infant

Other combinations

premature laborpremature babypremature deathpremature beatspremature delivery

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

prematurelyadverbDerived adverb
Before the end of the normal period of gestation.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

premature infantnounCompound term
An infant that is born prior to 37 weeks of gestation.
premature labornounCompound term
Labor beginning prior to the 37th week of gestation.
premature labournounCompound term
Labor beginning prior to the 37th week of gestation.
premature ventricular contractionnounCompound term
Irregularity of cardiac rhythm.
premature ejaculationnounCompound term
Ejaculation during the early stages of sexual excitement or soon after the insertion of the penis into the vagina.
premature babynounCompound term
An infant that is born prior to 37 weeks of gestation.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: taking place earlier than anticipated or prepared for

previousuntimely

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.