I suddenly find myself trying to describe a date that's an exact number of years before a scheduled event and I can't think of a better word to describe it than "pre-anniversary" or maybe even "preanniversary". Both seem rather ugly and open to misinterpretation, for example I can see how they might be interpreted as meaning some arbitrary period or point in time before a specific anniversary date.
So how might I be more specific?
Example: something is known to be going to happen on, say, 20-May-2024. I'm looking for a word to describe 20-May-2023, being exactly one year before (the "minus-oneth" anniversary). Or other 20th Mays even further back.
Best Answer
Interesting question! I don't think a single English word exists for this, at least not one that would be readily understood without explanation. If you want one, you'll have to make it up yourself, and be prepared to explain it. Antiversary, for instance, seems cute and compact, but is readily misinterpretable (a friend suggested to me the other day that an antiversary means one year after a couple breaks up).
But if you're willing to use more than one word, negative-first anniversary seems readily understandable; if I'm going to get married a year from now, it's my negative-first anniversary. Googling "negative one anniversary", "negative anniversary" and so on turns up plenty of hits, suggesting that this is a natural, intuitive way to describe the concept.
More colloquially, I often hear people using T-minus terminology - deriving from the countdowns we've all seen in movies, where rocket scientists say something like "T-minus 5 minutes" to mark the time until launch - when describing an anticipated event. So, for instance, a party that's held 1 year before your college graduation could be your "T-minus 1 year grad party."