Prehistory

Definitions

1. The time before written records in any area of the world; the events and conditions of those times.
   countable, uncountable
2. The study of those times.
   countable, uncountable
3. Any past time (even recent) treated as such a distant, unknowable era.
   countable, excessive, humorous, uncountable
4. The history leading up to some event, condition, etc.
   countable, often, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

““We don’t find⟳ evidence for that sort⟳ of thing anywhere in prehistory.””

“I was a town boy through and through. The country belonged to a vague pre-history.”

“Psychologists... are mostly bad historians, inventing—as Freud has done—their pre-history to suit⟳ their theories.”

“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.”

CEFR level