pro-form

pro·form or pro-form  (prfôrm)

n.

An item in a sentence, typically a pronoun, verb, or adverb, that substitutes for a constituent phrase or clause, as the words he and so in the sentence He said so, with the pronoun he replacing a noun phrase such as the president and the adverb so replacing a clause such as that he would leave today.

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pro-form

n

(Linguistics / Grammar) a word having grammatical function but assuming the meaning of an antecedent word or phrase for which it substitutes the word ``does'' is a pro-form for ``understands Greek'' in ``I can't understand Greek but he does''

Translations

pro-form [ˈprəʊˌfɔːm] N (Ling) → pro forma f