All 3 Uses of
preparatory
in
A Prayer for Owen Meany
- This was borderline acceptable to Harriet Wheelwright—although my grandmother was a shrewd enough businesswoman to know that the dollars and cents of teaching (even at as prestigious a prep school as Gravesend Academy) were not exactly in her league.†
p. 45.1 *
- Dan became the best of those faculty found at a prep school: he was not only a spirited, good teacher, but he believed that it was a hardship to be young, that it was more difficult to be a teenager than a grown-up—an opinion not widely held among grown-ups, and rarely held among the faculty members at a private school (who more frequently look upon their charges as the privileged louts of the luxury class—spoiled brats in need of discipline).†
p. 267.1
- In the snow, the clock tower of Upper Canada College appears to preside over a preparatory school in a small New England town; when it's not snowing, the cars and buses on the surrounding roads are more numerous, the sounds of traffic are less muted, and the presence of downtown Toronto seems closer.†
p. 91.2
Definitions:
-
(1)
(preparatory) done to get ready for something that will happen later
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
The expressions preparatory school and preparatory classes typically imply preparation for college. Often, preparatory school is shortened to prep school.