Antediluvian means absurdly old-fashioned, as if from before the flood. Antediluvian attitudes, an antediluvian system, frankly antediluvian.
It is always a joke at the expense of something outdated, and the length of the word is part of the effect. The Latin means before the flood, meaning Noah's, and it was once used seriously in geology.
1adjectiveantediluvianAbsurdly old-fashioned, as if from before the flood.
“My grandfather has antediluvian ideas about women staying at home.”
antediluvian is a quality.
Ante is before and the rest is the flood, the one Noah built the boat for. Antediluvian means older than that, and it is not usually a compliment.
hooks ontoflood
Latin ante, before, plus diluvium, a flood, referring to the flood of Noah.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ent-
Proto-Indo-European
*lewh₃- — to wash
English, today
antediluvian
Built from
From ante- + dīluvium + -an, 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- + lavō (“to wash”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European lewh₃- (“to wash”))) + -ium. The English word is analyzable as ante- + diluvian. extinct (“long extinct”) is from the fact that such animals and plants were originally believed to have perished in the biblical flood referred to above.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA