Prehistory Meaning
/ˈpriˈhɪstəri/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe time before written records in any area of the world; the events and conditions of those times.
nounThe study of those times.
Sentence Examples
Archaeology is critical to the study of all history, but especially prehistory.
We talked about prehistory, history, the future, the whole shebang.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The university course on ____ covers the long time before written records.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The study of ____ relies on archaeological evidence since no written records exist from that period.
Word Origin & History
From pre- (“before”) + history, first attested in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836, after the model of prehistoric, from French préhistorique.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"“We don’t find evidence for that sort of thing anywhere in prehistory.”"
— 2014 September 29, Douglas Quenqua, “Toolmaking May Have Risen Independently”, in The New York Times:
"I was a town boy through and through. The country belonged to a vague pre-history."
— 1984, Shiva Naipaul, Beyond the Dragon's Mouth, page 25:
"Psychologists... are mostly bad historians, inventing—as Freud has done—their pre-history to suit their theories."
— 1931 July 25, Time & Tide, page 893:
"One of the challenges of studying any Jewish custom is that we tend to view it in an anachronistic fashion; we think that what we do today is what was always done. Therefore, in this article we shall describe the pre-history of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, the four basic components of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony before the year 1800 as suggested by Michael Hilton, and six major changes that occurred in modern times."
— 2021, David Golinkin, “What is the Origin and History of the Bar Mitzvah Ceremony”, in Anat Helman, editor, No Small Matter Features of Jewish Childhood:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The university course on ____ covers the long time before written records.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The study of ____ relies on archaeological evidence since no written records exist from that period.