Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Premature for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Today's word is "Premature" — adjective, pronounced /ˈpremətʃə/, with the stress on "prem".
Narrator: Premature means happening earlier than expected or earlier than is right.
Narrator: In plain English, premature means too soon.
Narrator: It comes from the Latin praematurus, ripe too early.
Narrator: A common collocation is "a premature baby", which describes a baby born before thirty-seven weeks.
Narrator: It differs from "early", because early can be good, while premature suggests it was too soon.
Narrator: In a second sense, a premature decision or celebration comes before the facts are clear.
Narrator: Medicine, sport, business and law all rely on the word.
Narrator: So remember: premature means too early.
Speaker A: Why did the coach say celebrating was premature?
Speaker B: Because the match wasn't over! PREMATURE comes from the Latin for ripe too early.
Speaker A: So it warns us to wait?
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker A: Example sentences?
Speaker B: "The baby was born six weeks premature", a medical fact. "It's premature to blame anyone", a caution. "Smoking causes premature ageing", a health warning.
Speaker A: Common mistakes?
Speaker B: Stress the first syllable in British English, PREM-a-ture, and do not spell it prematuer.
Speaker A: Close relatives?
Speaker B: Early is its neutral cousin, hasty is its rushed twin, and untimely is the sad alternative, but premature keeps its cautious charm!
Speaker B: Let's use "premature" in AI prompts — useful for healthcare tools and code optimisation.
Speaker A: How would healthcare tools use it?
Speaker B: Support parents gently.
Prompt: Write a calm, plain-English guide for parents of a premature baby explaining common equipment in a neonatal unit.
Speaker A: And code optimisation?
Speaker B: Avoid wasted effort.
Prompt: Review this code and tell me which proposed optimisations would be premature before we have performance data.
Speaker A: Could it help news writing?
Speaker B: Yes, careful headlines.
Prompt: Rewrite this headline so it does not draw premature conclusions about the cause of the fire.
Speaker A: One more?
Speaker B: Analytics.
Prompt: Warn me if any A/B test result in this dashboard is premature because the sample size is too small.
Premature — meaning in Arabic & definition More P courses GL Dictionary