What is the opposite of postpone?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do I say “Our meeting is preponed”?

A friend of mine asked me this question, and it caught my curiosity.

Is there an explicit opposite of the word postpone? As in, do something in advance? Clearly what I just said is functionally equivalent to the answer I am seeking, but I was wondering if there was a single word that is the antonym.

More context: Bob was supposed to start work in July, but due to a work visa issue, he had to begin in advance.

Possible duplicate of How do I say "Our meeting is preponed"?. See also Is “prepone” being used outside India? — RegDwigнt, Mar 01 '11 at 21:39

score 22 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 01 '11 at 21:31

22

The most business-speaky option is expedite. Other alternatives include accelerate, hasten, and advance.

Technically prepone is in fact the precise antonym, but I honestly wouldn't be caught dead using it.

answered Mar 01 '11 at 21:31

chaos

19,612

Agreed. If only we could use expedite when we were setting an earlier date for a meeting and the like; it may be the closest thing we have. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 01 '11 at 21:53

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 01 '11 at 21:27

7

I think the best antonym is "bring forward".

answered Mar 01 '11 at 21:27

LPC

111
4

3

OP is looking for a single word... – Aaron McIver Mar 01 '11 at 21:28
1

My fault!:S Nevertheless, I think it is the best antonym. – LPC Mar 01 '11 at 21:35
The OP is asking for "an explicit opposite", and tagged the question with antonyms. The only antonym for postpone reported in the thesaurus is bring forward. – apaderno Mar 01 '11 at 21:35
2

I apparently thing of forward and back differently than you. "Postpone" seem to more relate to "bring forward" (i.e. forward more to the future) and whatever the opposite seems to relate more to "bring back". – Peter Olson Mar 01 '11 at 21:57
I agree with Peter. How is moving forwards in time going into the past? We cannot be complacent with this illogicality simply because others use it. – ahorn May 25 '17 at 18:06

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 01 '11 at 21:42

Although "prepone" is the obvious counterpoint to postpone, it smacks of neologism (in American English, at least). I would argue that "do in advance" also doesn't cover it, since it doesn't have a sense of "move the schedule forward", only "complete prior to the scheduled time".

In fact, "move the schedule forward" is the best way I can think of to say it, or "reschedule at an earlier date" to be even more wordy.

_{(Given human nature, I'm not at all surprised that a word so common as "postpone" has no clear antonym; but perhaps we'll get around to making one eventually.)}

Haha, right. Perhaps we could make "antecrastinate" or "rehodiate"... or we could just grin and bear our nature. — Cerberus - Reinstate Monica, Mar 01 '11 at 21:49

Aaron McIver · Answer 4 · 2011-03-01T21:54:59.433

3

Prepone

Which appears to be Indian based...

UPDATE:

Found this on Urban Dictionary with regard to prepone.

Has been in use in urban English spoken in India since at least the 1950s

Also noticed that the SE spell checker does not know what to do with prepone other then mark it misspelled.

edited Mar 01 '11 at 21:54

answered Mar 01 '11 at 21:27

Aaron McIver

531

2

I don't think this word is used much by native speakers elsewhere... – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 01 '11 at 21:33
@Cerberus Agreed; the OP appeared to be looking for a Jeopardy style answer – Aaron McIver Mar 01 '11 at 21:36
Your answer is still valuable for encyclopaedic comparison! – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 01 '11 at 21:50
2

I would have thought The Urban Dictionary would spell it prepwn. – Robusto Mar 01 '11 at 22:06
Prepone will not work with the OP's example sentence. – Marthaª Mar 02 '11 at 00:16
@Robusto: I bet it would have been preppown then! – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Mar 02 '11 at 00:19
Also found this: https://folkabulary.com/definition/prepone/, stating that it was first coined circa 1600 – Johan May 25 '22 at 08:54

What is the opposite of postpone?

4 Answers4

Related