OLD WORLD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Old World mean? 

• OLD WORLD (noun)
  The noun OLD WORLD has 1 sense:

1. the regions of the world that were known to Europeans before the discovery of the Americas

  Familiarity information: OLD WORLD used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OLD WORLD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The regions of the world that were known to Europeans before the discovery of the Americas

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Instance hypernyms:

region (a large indefinite location on the surface of the Earth)

Holonyms ("Old World" is a part of...):

eastern hemisphere; orient (the hemisphere that includes Eurasia and Africa and Australia)

 Context examples 

Oh, if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"Complementing evidence in humans and Old World monkeys, we suggest that reliance on scent signals to communicate MHC quality may be important across the primate lineage," say the researchers.

(Lemurs can smell whether a mate's immune genes are a good match, National Science Foundation)

A. actinomycetemcomitans is an oral commensal in humans and Old World primates, and may be a cause of periodontal disease.

(Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, NCI Thesaurus)

The gate was then closed, and the girl found herself back in the old world close to her mother’s house.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The new hyaenodont species was discovered in the same 25 million-year-old rocks as the oldest fossil evidence of the split between Old World monkeys and apes.

(Fossil discovery in Tanzania reveals ancient bobcat-sized carnivore, National Science Foundation)

“How can the Old World heroes compare with ours?” I shook my head.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A substance derived from any of several Old World coarse prickly-leaved shrubs and subshrubs including the plant Silybum marianum.

(Milk thistle, NCI Thesaurus)

The fifteen subfamilies are HESPEROMYINAE (New World mice and rats), Cricetinae, Spalacinae, Myospalacinae, Lophiomyinae, Platacanthomyinae, Nesomyinae, Otomyinae, Rhizomyinae, MICROTINAE (Arvicolinae), GERBILLINAE, Dendromurinae, Cricetomyinae, Murinae (Old World mice and rats), and Hydromyinae.

(Muridae, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Any member of four genera of the rodent family Cricetidae; short-tailed Old World burrowing rodents with large cheek pouches.

(Hamster, NCI Thesaurus)

This group is divided into Old World monkeys (Cercopithecidae) and New World monkeys (Callitrichidae and Cebidae).

(Monkey, NCI Thesaurus)