In set theory, a prewellordering on a set ${\displaystyle X}$ is a preorder ${\displaystyle \leq }$ on ${\displaystyle X}$ (a transitive and reflexive relation on ${\displaystyle X}$) that is strongly connected (meaning that any two points are comparable) and well-founded in the sense that the induced relation ${\displaystyle x<y}$ defined by ${\displaystyle x\leq y{\text{ and }}y\nleq x}$ is a well-founded relation.

Transitive binary relations v t e
Symmetric Antisymmetric Connected Well-founded Has joins Has meets Reflexive Irreflexive Asymmetric Total, Semiconnex Anti- reflexive Equivalence relation Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Preorder (Quasiorder) ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Partial order ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Total preorder ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Total order ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Prewellordering ✗ ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Well-quasi-ordering ✗ ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Well-ordering ✗ Y Y Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Lattice ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Y Y Y ✗ ✗ Join-semilattice ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Y ✗ Y ✗ ✗ Meet-semilattice ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ Strict partial order ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y Strict weak order ✗ Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y Strict total order ✗ Y Y ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ Y Y Symmetric Antisymmetric Connected Well-founded Has joins Has meets Reflexive Irreflexive Asymmetric Definitions, for all ${\displaystyle a,b}$ and ${\displaystyle S\neq \varnothing$ :} ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&aRb\\\Rightarrow {}&bRa\end{aligned}}}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}aRb{\text{ and }}&bRa\\\Rightarrow a={}&b\end{aligned}}}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}a\neq {}&b\Rightarrow \\aRb{\text{ or }}&bRa\end{aligned}}}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\min S\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}a\vee b\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}a\wedge b\\{\text{exists}}\end{aligned}}}$ ${\displaystyle aRa}$ ${\displaystyle {\text{not }}aRa}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}aRb\Rightarrow \\{\text{not }}bRa\end{aligned}}}$
Y indicates that the column's property is always true the row's term (at the very left), while ✗ indicates that the property is not guaranteed in general (it might, or might not, hold). For example, that every equivalence relation is symmetric, but not necessarily antisymmetric, is indicated by Y in the "Symmetric" column and ✗ in the "Antisymmetric" column, respectively. All definitions tacitly require the homogeneous relation ${\displaystyle R}$ be transitive: for all ${\displaystyle a,b,c,}$ if ${\displaystyle aRb}$ and ${\displaystyle bRc}$ then ${\displaystyle aRc.}$ A term's definition may require additional properties that are not listed in this table.

A prewellordering on a set ${\displaystyle X}$ is a homogeneous binary relation ${\displaystyle \,\leq \,}$ on ${\displaystyle X}$ that satisfies the following conditions:^[1]

1. Reflexivity: ${\displaystyle x\leq x}$ for all ${\displaystyle x\in X.}$
2. Transitivity: if ${\displaystyle x<y}$ and ${\displaystyle y<z}$ then ${\displaystyle x<z}$ for all ${\displaystyle x,y,z\in X.}$
3. Total/Strongly connected: ${\displaystyle x\leq y}$ or ${\displaystyle y\leq x}$ for all ${\displaystyle x,y\in X.}$
4. for every non-empty subset ${\displaystyle S\subseteq X,}$ there exists some ${\displaystyle m\in S}$ such that ${\displaystyle m\leq s}$ for all ${\displaystyle s\in S.}$
   • This condition is equivalent to the induced strict preorder ${\displaystyle x<y}$ defined by ${\displaystyle x\leq y}$ and ${\displaystyle y\nleq x}$ being a well-founded relation.

A homogeneous binary relation ${\displaystyle \,\leq \,}$ on ${\displaystyle X}$ is a prewellordering if and only if there exists a surjection ${\displaystyle \pi :X\to Y}$ into a well-ordered set ${\displaystyle (Y,\lesssim )}$ such that for all ${\displaystyle x,y\in X,}$ ${\textstyle x\leq y}$ if and only if ${\displaystyle \pi (x)\lesssim \pi (y).}$^[1]

Properties

If ${\displaystyle \leq }$ is a prewellordering on ${\displaystyle X,}$ then the relation ${\displaystyle \sim }$ defined by

$${\displaystyle x\sim y{\text{ if and only if }}x\leq y\land y\leq x}$$

is an equivalence relation on ${\displaystyle X,}$ and ${\displaystyle \leq }$ induces a wellordering on the quotient ${\displaystyle X/{\sim }.}$ The order-type of this induced wellordering is an ordinal, referred to as the length of the prewellordering.

A norm on a set ${\displaystyle X}$ is a map from ${\displaystyle X}$ into the ordinals. Every norm induces a prewellordering; if ${\displaystyle \phi :X\to Ord}$ is a norm, the associated prewellordering is given by

$${\displaystyle x\leq y{\text{ if and only if }}\phi (x)\leq \phi (y)}$$

Conversely, every prewellordering is induced by a unique regular norm (a norm ${\displaystyle \phi :X\to Ord}$ is regular if, for any ${\displaystyle x\in X}$ and any ${\displaystyle \alpha <\phi (x),}$ there is ${\displaystyle y\in X}$ such that ${\displaystyle \phi (y)=\alpha }$).

If ${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\Gamma }}}$ is a pointclass of subsets of some collection ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}}$ of Polish spaces, ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}}}$ closed under Cartesian product, and if ${\displaystyle \leq }$ is a prewellordering of some subset ${\displaystyle P}$ of some element ${\displaystyle X}$ of ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {F}},}$ then ${\displaystyle \leq }$ is said to be a ${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\Gamma }}}$-prewellordering of ${\displaystyle P}$ if the relations ${\displaystyle <^{*}}$ and ${\displaystyle \leq ^{*}}$ are elements of ${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\Gamma }},}$ where for ${\displaystyle x,y\in X,}$

1. ${\displaystyle x<^{*}y{\text{ if and only if }}x\in P\land (y\notin P\lor (x\leq y\land y\not \leq x))}$
2. ${\displaystyle x\leq ^{*}y{\text{ if and only if }}x\in P\land (y\notin P\lor x\leq y)}$

${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\Gamma }}}$ is said to have the prewellordering property if every set in ${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\Gamma }}}$ admits a ${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\Gamma }}}$-prewellordering.

The prewellordering property is related to the stronger scale property; in practice, many pointclasses having the prewellordering property also have the scale property, which allows drawing stronger conclusions.

• Descriptive set theory – Subfield of mathematical logic
• Graded poset – partially ordered set equipped with a rank function, sometimes called a ranked posetPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback – a graded poset is analogous to a prewellordering with a norm, replacing a map to the ordinals with a map to the natural numbers
• Scale property – kind of object in descriptive set theoryPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback