Prehistory is the long stretch of time before anything was written down. British prehistory, the study of prehistory, deep prehistory.
It ends at a different date in every part of the world, since it ends where writing begins, and that is thousands of years apart between Iraq and New Zealand. Everything known about it comes from objects rather than accounts.
1nounprehistoryThe long stretch of time before anything was written down.
“Cave paintings give us a glimpse of how people lived in prehistory.”
prehistory is a period.
Pre-, before, plus history, first recorded in 1836 after the French prehistorique.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyd-
Middle English
historie
English
history
English, today
prehistory
Built from
From pre- + history. From pre- + history, first attested in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836, after the model of prehistoric, from French préhistorique. history comes from Middle English historie. From Middle English historie, from Old French estoire, estorie (“chronicle, history, story”) (French histoire), from Latin historia, from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (“learning through research”), from ἱστορέω (“to research, inquire (and) record”), from ἵστωρ (“the knowing, wise one”), from Proto-Indo-European weyd- (“see, know”). a doublet of story and storey. Attested in Middle English in 1393 by John Gower, Confessio Amantis, which was aimed at an educated audience familiar with French and Latin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA