prehistoric

Etymology

It is formed from English pre- + historic.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Barnhart and Etymonline think it was probably modelled on French préhistorique,^[3][4] and Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English derive it from the French word.^[7][8] The OED compares the slightly earlier ante-historic.^[2] Historic itself goes back to Latin historicus, from Ancient Greek ἱστορικός (historikós).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Belonging to or dating from the time before written historical records: 1832, in the Foreign Quarterly Review.^[2][6][9] Etymonline and Barnhart date the word only from 1851,^[4][3] and Weekley says it was coined about 1850 by D. Wilson.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The joking sense "extremely old, out of date" was used by George Eliot in a letter of 1859,^[2][5] and the Historical Thesaurus places it among words for old-fashioned things.^[9] A noun, a prehistoric person or thing, followed in 1862.^[2] In linguistics the adjective also describes a stage of a language from which no contemporary records survive.^[6][11] The noun prehistory is first recorded in 1871, in E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture,^[2][3] and both the OED and Barnhart see it as formed after the adjective or alongside it.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1832 – of the time before written records.^[2][6]
• 1851 – first date in Etymonline and Barnhart.^[4][3]
• 1859 – humorously, very old, out of date.^[2]
• 1862 – noun, a prehistoric person or thing.^[2]
• 1871 – prehistory, the period before written records.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Belonging to or existing in the time before written history: prehistoric rock carvings.^[12][6][2]
2. Of a language, belonging to a stage of which no records survive.^[6][11]
3. (informal) Very old or outdated: My phone is prehistoric compared with yours.^[6][5][2]

Word family

• prehistorically

Related words

• prehistory
• historic
• history
• protohistoric

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins