preludio, m., prelude, forerunner, precursor.

But before entering upon the details of this revolting subject, we must state that, whatever punishment was inflicted upon a culprit, it was very rare that its execution had not been preceded by the amende honorable, which, in certain cases, constituted a distinct punishment, but which generally was but the prelude to the torture itself.

Soon after he left the buoy, he heard just above his head a sort of whiffing sound, which his imagination conjured into the prelude to the 'rushing of a mighty wind,' and close to his ear there followed a smart splash in the water, and a sudden shriek that went through him,such as is heard "'When the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest cry.'

In the kitchen Sally spoke without prelude.

Goethe's literary satires and poems for special occasions are a prelude to the purely literary existence and the belligerent spirit of men like Platen and Immermann, who both, as it were by accident, found their way into the open of national poesy.

Our individual tickets were obtained under shelter, but in an office of such Lilliputian dimensions, that the ordinary press of passengers made it like a theatrical squeeze on a Jenny Lind night; only with this lamentable differencethat the theatrical squeeze was a prelude to all that could charm the senses, whereas the ticket squeeze was, I knew but too well, the precursor of a day of most uncomfortable travelling.

Since July 15th, when the Kaiser mounted a high observation post to watch the launching of the offensive which was to achieve his crowning victory, but proved the prelude of the German collapse, the conflict has raged continuously and with uninterrupted success for the Allied Armies.

The triumph of the irreconcilables in Ireland was a foregone but sinister conclusion to their activities in the War, and an ominous prelude to their subsequent efforts to wreck the Pence.

37.The word what, when uttered independently as a mark of surprise, or as the prelude to an emphatic question which it does not ask, becomes an interjection; and, as such, is to be parsed merely as other interjections are parsed: as, "What!

[From the Prelude.] So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparking clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.

The mature and seasoned personalities had sounded the prelude to the revolution which "here bloodily, there peaceably, and beginning with Russia, would sweep the earth."

A child of twelve might understand Carlyle's Essay on Burns if it were carefully read in class, and a good sixth form might learn much from Wordsworth's Prelude.

Prelude in E minor.

Easter prelude, by Edward W. Norman pseud.

Two studies from Op.37: Prelude in C, op.37, no.35.

Mountain prelude.

Mountain prelude.

I become conscious here of how noisily and hurriedly I have lived my life; happily enough, I will confess; but the thought of it allthe class-room, the street, the playing-fieldbright and vivacious as it all was, seems now like a boisterous prelude of blaring brass and tingling string, which lapses into some delicate economy of sweet melody and gliding chord.

I will not regard them as past and gone; I will rather regard them as the slow sweet prelude of the great symphony; if I am now tossed upon the melancholy and broken waves of some vehement scherzo of life, the subject is but working itself out, and I will strive to apprehend it even here.

The dangers and difficulties they encounter in overcoming them form a kind of prelude to war, and perfect them in the use of their weapons.

These various ravages and skirmishes were but the prelude to a far more serious attack.

This was followed forthwith by new outrages, and Blount wrote to Robertson: "It does really seem as if assurances from Mr. Seagrove of the peaceful disposition of the Creeks was the prelude to their murdering and plundering the inhabitants of your district."

" Montesquieu thus performed the prelude to the great work of his life; he had been working for twenty years at the Esprit des lois, when he published it in 1748.

The most daring writer of fiction could scarcely devise a more romantic meeting than this between the autocrat of Russia and the red-armed, bustling cleaner of the window-panes, and he would certainly never have ventured to build on it the romance of which it was the prelude.

The passions of the mob were breaking down the barriers that were now too weak to hold them in check; the Paris streets had their first baptism of blood, prelude to the deluge to follow; hideous, fierce-eyed crowds were clamouring at the gates of Versailles; and de Brissac was soon on his way, a prisoner, to Orleans.