prehistory

noun pre·his·to·ry \ ˌprē-ˈhi-st(ə-)rē \

Updated on: 13 May 2018

Definition of prehistory

1 : the study of prehistoric humankind

2 : a history of the antecedents of an event, situation, or thing

3 : the prehistoric period of human evolution

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Examples of prehistory in a Sentence

We are learning about the prehistory of North America.

Recent Examples of prehistory from the Web

The millions who live in these cities, though, know that there’s a whole prehistory to their modernist urban experiments.

— jason farago, New York Times, "How Latin America Was Built, Before Modernism Came Along," 18 Apr. 2018
This tragic prehistory re-emerged in the novel, which depicts the perils of parenthood and a creature that destroys its progenitor.

— The Economist, "Frankenstein: the monster that never dies," 17 Feb. 2018
But for the Kardashians, that must seem like prehistory, England before the Norman invasion.

— alexander nazaryan, Newsweek, "The Kardashians Killed the Hamptons," 3 July 2014
In archaeology, such attitudes have limited our understanding of Arctic prehistory, says Erica Hill, a zooarchaeologist with the University of Alaska Southeast.

— krista langlois, Smithsonian, "Why Scientists Are Starting to Care About Cultures Who Talk to Whales," 6 Apr. 2018
Over the broad sweep of prehistory and then history, pet keeping went through two distinct stages.

— Longreads, "The Way We Treat Our Pets Is More Paleolithic Than Medieval," 22 Mar. 2018
Norway’s mountains are probably still hiding a lot of history—and prehistory—in remote ice patches.

— kiona n. smith, Ars Technica, "Climate change melting pre-Viking artifacts out of Norway’s glaciers," 24 Jan. 2018
Somewhere in prehistory, mankind invented politics to work through the inevitable complexities and contradictions.

— daniel henninger, WSJ, "Trump Revives ‘The Apprentice’," 7 Mar. 2018
Such questions run through Lee’s many affecting poems about his life as a refugee, now part of his mind’s prehistory, its episodes a hodgepodge of firsthand memories and secondhand accounts.

— andrew marantz, The New Yorker, "“The Undressing”: Poetry of Passion Laid Bare," 8 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'prehistory.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of prehistory

1871

in the meaning defined at sense 1

See Words from the same year

NEW! Time Traveler

Other Anthropology Terms

ectomorph, ethnography, yurt

PREHISTORY Defined for English Language Learners

prehistory

noun

Definition of prehistory for English Language Learners

: the period of time in the past before people could write : the time before history was written down
: the time and events that came before and led to the development of something