premodern

adjective

pre·​mod·​ern ˌprē-ˈmä-dərn 

nonstandard -ˈmä-d(ə-)rən

variants or pre-modern

1

: of, relating to, originating in, or being an era before a modern one

premodern societies/beliefs

the pre-modern world

in premodern times

… still living in huts and using pre-modern agricultural methods 150 years after the invention of the steam engine.

—Jo Ann Skousen

2

or pre-Modern : of, relating to, characterized by, or being any of the artistic and literary practices and philosophies that preceded those of modernism (see modernism sense 3)

pre-Modern architecture

a pre-Modern artist/writer

… following pre-modern conventions of pictorial composition, the artist combines several distinct vignettes within a single picture frame …

—Benjamin Schmidt

Examples of premodern in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

From a distance, one side of Speculation / c (2026) looks like a premodern saint carved from rock, melted into a scream. — Lavender Au, ARTnews.com, 21 Sep. 2026

Sequence unraveled, and with it the onward rush, progression, the sense of one event coming after another; my understanding of cause and effect, of the chronological chopping-up of time both personal and historical—before and after, premodern and modern—all blurred, folded, unraveled out of reach. — Literary Hub, 16 June 2026

For a long time, influenced by anthropologists, historians of premodern Europe tried to make these strange things make perfect sense. — Chandler Fritz, The New York Review of Books, 21 Mar. 2026

The private Nezu Museum houses the collection of industrialist and politician Kaichiro Nezu, who had a penchant for premodern Buddhist art from Japan and East Asia. — Jessica Kozuka, Travel + Leisure, 13 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1901, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for premodern

• postmodern
• modern