Prehistoric

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Prehistoric \Pre`his*tor"ic\, a.
     Of or pertaining to a period before written history begins;
     as, the prehistoric ages; prehistoric man.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:



  prehistoric
       adj 1: belonging to or existing in times before recorded history;
              "prehistoric settlements"; "prehistoric peoples" [syn:
               {prehistorical}]
       2: of or relating to times before written history; "prehistoric
          archeology"
       3: no longer fashionable; "my mother has these prehistoric
          ideas about proper clothes"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  44 Moby Thesaurus words for "prehistoric":
     aboriginal, ancestral, ancient, antediluvian, antepatriarchal,
     antiquated, atavistic, autochthonous, earliest, early, erstwhile,
     fore, former, fossil, humanoid, immemorial, late, old,
     old-fashioned, olden, once, onetime, passe, past, patriarchal,
     preadamite, preglacial, prehuman, previous, primal, prime,
     primeval, primitive, primogenial, primoprimitive, primordial,
     prior, pristine, protohistoric, protohuman, quondam, recent,
     sometime, then
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  PREHISTORIC, adj.  Belonging to an early period and a museum. 
  Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
  
      He lived in a period prehistoric,
      When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
      Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,
      Set down great events in succession and order,
      He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous
      In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.
                                                           Orpheus Bowen