Preface vs Index - What's the difference?
preface | index |
The beginning or introductory portion that comes before the main text of a document or book.
An introduction, or series of preliminary remarks.
* Shakespeare
* Milton
(Roman Catholic) The prelude or introduction to the canon of the Mass.
To introduce or make a comment before (the main point).
To give a preface to.
An alphabetical listing of items and their location.
The index finger; the forefinger.
A movable finger on a gauge, scale, etc.
(printing) A symbol resembling a pointing hand, used to direct particular attention to a note or paragraph.
That which points out; that which shows, indicates, manifests, or discloses.
* Arbuthnot
A sign; an indication; a token.
* Robert Louis Stevenson
(linguistics) A type of noun where the meaning of the form changes with respect to the context. E.g., 'Today's newspaper' is an indexical form since its referent will differ depending on the context. See also icon and symbol.
(economics) A single number calculated from an array of prices or of quantities.
(science) A number representing a property or ratio, a coefficient.
(mathematics) A raised suffix indicating a power.
(programming, computing) An integer or other key indicating the location of data e.g. within an array, vector, database table, associative array, or hash table.
(computing, databases) A data structure that improves the performance of operations on a table.
(obsolete) A prologue indicating what follows.
To arrange an index for something, especially a long text.
To inventory, to take stock.
As nouns the difference between preface and index
is that preface is the part of the liturgy that precedes the main part of the eucharist while index is index.preface
English
(wikipedia preface)Alternative forms
* (archaic)Noun
(en noun)- The book included a brief preface by a leading expert in the field.
- This superficial tale / Is but a preface of her worthy praise.
- Heaven's high behest no preface needs.
Verb
(prefac)- Let me preface this by saying that I don't know him that well.
- to preface a book
See also
* foretalk * foreword * introduction * preludeindex
English
(wikipedia index)Noun
(en-noun)- The index of a book lists words or expressions and the pages of the book upon which they are to be found.
- Tastes are the indexes of the different qualities of plants.
- His son's empty guffaws struck him with pain as the indices of a weak mind.
- (Shakespeare)