prep
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Preparatory school work done outside school.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
prehpIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɹɛp
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
informalcountable
Preparatory school work done outside school (especially at home)
ukchiefly private schoolsuncountable
Homework; work set to do outside class time.
informalcountable
A student or graduate of a prep school, a preppy.
Any of a class of non-inflecting words and multiword terms typically employed to connect a following noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word: a particle used with a noun or pronoun (in English always in the objective case) to make a phrase limiting some other word.
philippines
Preparatory level; the last two levels or the fourth and fifth years of preschool; the two levels before first grade.
Australia
Nursery school; preschool.
verb
informal
To prepare.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Preparatory school work done outside school (especially at home)
Used this way, prep is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in education or classroom and everyday conversation contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Education/classroom
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use prep
- “We need to prep the vegetables before we start cooking dinner.”
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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.