For example let us say that we have a algebraic structure $A$ with operations $[,+,-,0]$ where $[+,-,0]$ makes a group (possibly not abelian) and $$ nearly distributes over $+$, for example \(a*(b+c) \equiv a*b+a*c \pmod{\langle a,b,c\rangle^3}\) I.e. modulo any triple product of ${a,b,c}$ we have the distributive property if you have an pre-algebra $A$