antediluvian

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period

   a ramshackle antediluvian tenement

2. 2
   adj

   of or relating to the period before the biblical flood

   antediluvian man

3. 3
   adj

   Belonging or pertaining to, or existing in, the time prior to the great flood described in Genesis, or (by extension) to a great or destructive flood or deluge described in other mythologies.

   [P]erhaps ſome perſons might outlive Methuſelah; the Text intending onely the maſculine line of Seth, conduceable unto the Genealogy of our Saviour, and the antediluvian Chronology.

4. 4
   adj

   Of animals and plants: long extinct; prehistoric.

   Having already described him [the whale] in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view.

5. 5
   adj

   Of a person or thing: very old; ancient.

   [H]is eldest son Bo-bo, […] let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished.

6. 6
   adj

   Of attitudes, ideas, etc.: extremely old-fashioned, especially to a laughable extent; antiquated.

   Those ideas are antediluvian.

7. 7
   noun

   A very old person.

   From what cursed old antediluvian, who lived before the invention of the spinning-jennies, she learned this craft, Heaven only knows; […]

8. 8
   noun

   a very old person

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…