PREHISTORIC

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does prehistoric mean? 

• PREHISTORIC (adjective)
  The adjective PREHISTORIC has 3 senses:

1. belonging to or existing in times before recorded history

2. of or relating to times before written history

3. no longer fashionable

  Familiarity information: PREHISTORIC used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PREHISTORIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Belonging to or existing in times before recorded history

Synonyms:

prehistoric; prehistorical

Context example:

prehistoric peoples

Similar:

past (earlier than the present time; no longer current)

Derivation:

prehistory (the time during the development of human culture before the appearance of the written word)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of or relating to times before written history

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

prehistoric archeology

Pertainym:

prehistory (the time during the development of human culture before the appearance of the written word)

Derivation:

prehistory (the time during the development of human culture before the appearance of the written word)

Sense 3

Meaning:

No longer fashionable

Context example:

my mother has these prehistoric ideas about proper clothes

Similar:

unfashionable; unstylish (not in accord with or not following current fashion)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

 Context examples 

But if prehistoric life existed upon the plateau it was not superabundant, for we had no further glimpse of it during the next three days.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The sevengill is sometimes called a living fossil because it closely resembles similar sharks from prehistoric times.

(Study indicates as great white shark disappears, living fossil moves in, Wikinews)

The researchers theorize that the ancestors of all enterococci lived in the guts of prehistoric aquatic animals, and as their hosts left the sea around 425 million years ago, the bacteria were carried along.

(Enterococci may have evolved antimicrobial resistance millions of years ago, NIH)

The prehistoric hurricanes were likely category 3 storms (such as Hurricane Katrina) or category 4 storms (Hurricane Hugo) that would be catastrophic if they hit the region today.

(Monster hurricanes struck U.S. Northeast during prehistoric periods of ocean warming, NSF)

The findings, said scientists, indicate fauna from the prehistoric megacontinent Gondwanaland migrated to Laurasia.

(Cretaceous baby snake fossil found in Myanmar, Wikinews)

They examined whether patterns of community structure were best explained by recent or prehistoric human activity and by present-day or paleoclimate changes — in temperature from 22,000 years ago to the present, and in rainfall from 6,000 years ago to the present.

(Connecting the prehistoric past to the global future, National Science Foundation)

In every direction upon these moors there were traces of some vanished race which had passed utterly away, and left as its sole record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds which contained the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at prehistoric strife.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This research pushes the date for the last common ancestor between sharks and other types of jawed vertebrates back to 440 million years ago — more than 17 million years older than the previous estimate — and raises new questions about what life was like during a prehistoric period long shrouded in secrecy.

(Ancient sharks likely more diverse than previously thought, National Science Foundation)

DR. ILLINGWORTH (rising): 'Our point is that such a collection might have been made in other places than a prehistoric plateau.' (Applause.)

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

However, as ocean temperatures have slowly inched upward in recent decades, tropical North Atlantic sea surface temperatures have surpassed the warmth of prehistoric levels—and are expected to warm more over the next century as the climate heats up.

(Monster hurricanes struck U.S. Northeast during prehistoric periods of ocean warming, NSF)