1. prestress - Adjective
2. prestress - Verb
prestress (third-person singular simple present prestresses, present participle prestressing, simple past and past participle prestressed)
(construction) To apply stress to structural components in order to produce a tension that counteracts the loads to which the component is subjected in its designed use.
prestress (not comparable)
(linguistics) Before a stress (emphasis placed on a syllable of a word).
Coordinate term: poststress