Meaning & use
antediluvian
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Meanings
adjectivecomparablehumorousinformal
Extremely old-fashioned or out of date, as if from an age long before the present.
Grammar: Can appear before a noun or after a verb: antediluvian attitudes; his views are antediluvian. It is rarely modified.
Patterns
- antediluvian attitudes
- antediluvian equipment
The office still runs on antediluvian computers that crash daily.
Her grandfather held antediluvian views about women working.
The school's antediluvian rules finally changed this year.
adjectivebefore a nounreligionformal
Belonging to the time before the great flood described in the Bible.
Grammar: In this literal sense it is rare and found in religious or historical writing.
Patterns
- antediluvian world
- antediluvian patriarchs
The scholar studied the long lives of the antediluvian patriarchs.
Some writers imagined an antediluvian world of giants.
The lecture covered antediluvian legends from several cultures.
Common combinations
- antediluvian attitudes
- Antediluvian attitudes to safety put workers at risk.
- antediluvian machinery
- The factory still used antediluvian machinery.
- antediluvian views
- He was mocked for his antediluvian views on technology.
- seem antediluvian
- Dial phones seem antediluvian to young children.
Synonyms and how they differ
- outdated
- Outdated is plain and neutral, while antediluvian is a grander and more humorous exaggeration.
- prehistoric
- Prehistoric, used jokingly, also means hopelessly old, but it points to the time before records rather than before the flood.
- archaic
- Archaic is a serious word for something belonging to an earlier time, with less jokey exaggeration than antediluvian.
- obsolete
- Obsolete means no longer used or needed, not just old-fashioned in style or thinking.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: antediluvian or antebellum?
antediluvian vs antebellum
Antebellum means before a war, especially the American Civil War, not before the flood.
Practice
The comedian joked that the library's ______ photocopier was older than the building.
Choose one answer.
Antediluvian humorously means ridiculously old-fashioned, which suits a very old machine. The other adjectives start with the same letter but have unrelated meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “antediluvian”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.