"prehistoric" meaning in English

See prehistoric in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

IPA: /ˌpriːhɪˈstɒrɪk/ Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-prehistoric.wav [US] Forms: prehistoric [positive], – [comparative], – [superlative]
Etymology: pre- + historic Etymology templates: {{ety-prefix|pre|historic}} pre- + historic Head templates: {{adj}} [POS TABLE]
  1. If something is prehistoric, it is related to or denotes the period before written records.
    Sense id: simple-prehistoric-en-adj-KOAACe8c
  2. If something is prehistoric, it is very old.
    Sense id: simple-prehistoric-en-adj-RRmEAiMT Categories (other): Colloquial
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Categories (other): Terms prefixed with pre-
{
  "categories": [
    {
      "kind": "other",
      "name": "Terms prefixed with pre-",
      "parents": [],
      "source": "w"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "pre",
        "2": "historic"
      },
      "expansion": "pre- + historic",
      "name": "ety-prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "pre- + historic",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "prehistoric",
      "tags": [
        "positive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "–",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "–",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "If something is prehistoric, it is related to or denotes the period before written records."
      ],
      "id": "simple-prehistoric-en-adj-KOAACe8c"
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Colloquial",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If something is prehistoric, it is very old."
      ],
      "id": "simple-prehistoric-en-adj-RRmEAiMT",
      "raw_tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌpriːhɪˈstɒrɪk/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-prehistoric.wav",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "prehistoric"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "Terms prefixed with pre-"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "pre",
        "2": "historic"
      },
      "expansion": "pre- + historic",
      "name": "ety-prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "pre- + historic",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "prehistoric",
      "tags": [
        "positive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "–",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "–",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "If something is prehistoric, it is related to or denotes the period before written records."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Colloquial"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "If something is prehistoric, it is very old."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌpriːhɪˈstɒrɪk/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-prehistoric.wav",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "prehistoric"
}

Download raw JSONL data for prehistoric meaning in English (0.8kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-09 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (32c88e6 and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.