antediluvian

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun any of the early patriarchs who lived prior to the Noachian deluge
  2. noun a very old person
  3. adjective of or relating to the period before the biblical flood

Etymology

PIE word *dwís From ante- (prefix meaning ‘prior to in time’) + Latin dīluvium (“a flood”) + -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives; and forming agent nouns), referring the story of Noah’s Ark, through which God rescues Noah, his family, and examples of all the world’s animals from the great flood, which is related in Genesis 6–9 of the Bible. Dīluvium is derived from dīluō (“to wash away”) (from dis- (prefix meaning ‘apart, asunder, in two’) + lavō (“to wash”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewh₃- (“to wash”))) + -ium (suffix forming abstract nouns). The English word is analyzable as ante- + diluvian. Adjective sense 2 (“long extinct”) is from the fact that such animals and plants were originally believed to have perished in the biblical flood referred to above.

In classic literature

Synonyms

antediluvian patriarch

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