precontact
adjective
pre·con·tact
ˌprē-ˈkän-ˌtakt 
: of or relating to the period before contact of an Indigenous people with an outside culture
Examples of precontact in a Sentence
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Williams presents a history of the region, including its precontact way of life, early exploration by Captain Cook and other westerners, and the devastation by the flu epidemic of 1918-19, which killed half the population.
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David James, Anchorage Daily News, 25 Dec. 2021
The Spanish who arrived in Central and South America about a century earlier, and other European colonists who followed to the North, brought diseases so devastating to the precontact population that researchers have estimated 90 percent of the existing inhabitants were killed.
—Maryn McKenna, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2020
The authors also found a similar relationship between the precontact dogs and and modern Eurasian Arctic dogs like the Siberian husky.
—Deborah Netburn, latimes.com, 5 July 2018
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David James, Anchorage Daily News, 25 Dec. 2021
The Spanish who arrived in Central and South America about a century earlier, and other European colonists who followed to the North, brought diseases so devastating to the precontact population that researchers have estimated 90 percent of the existing inhabitants were killed.
—Maryn McKenna, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2020
The authors also found a similar relationship between the precontact dogs and and modern Eurasian Arctic dogs like the Siberian husky.
—Deborah Netburn, latimes.com, 5 July 2018
Cite this Entry
“Precontact.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precontact. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.
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