I enjoy the word prequel, which probably hadn’t even been coined when the first instance I encountered was published: The Magician’s Nephew, in the Narnia series.

Prequel doesn’t come from Latin: it’s a back-formation from sequel, which does. What tickles me is that its derivation aligns thereby with its definition, for a prequel is something constructed backward from something that already exists.

[21 August 2022]