Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Extremely old or outdated: Describes something so ancient that it seems to belong to a much earlier period, often implying it is obsolete or primitive.
   • Relating to the period before the Biblical Flood: Pertaining to the time or world before the great flood described in the Book of Genesis.

2. Noun:

   • A very old person: An elderly individual, often humorously or disparagingly implying they are out of touch with the modern world.
   • A patriarch from before the Flood: Any of the early biblical figures who lived prior to the Noachian deluge.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:

  • The museum displayed an antediluvian computer that used floppy disks. (The computer was extremely outdated.)
  • His views on technology are positively antediluvian. (His views are completely obsolete.)
  • Scientists study antediluvian fossils. (They study fossils from a very ancient, pre-flood era.)

• Noun:

  • My grandfather is a lovely old antediluvian who still writes letters by hand. (He is a very old-fashioned person.)
  • According to the Bible, Methuselah was an antediluvian. (He was a patriarch who lived before the Flood.)

Advanced Usage

• Used figuratively to criticize ideas, institutions, or objects as hopelessly old-fashioned and no longer relevant.
  • The company's antediluvian policies are driving away young talent.
• In academic or religious contexts, it specifically denotes the pre-flood epoch.
  • Theories about antediluvian civilizations are a topic of fringe archaeology.

Variants and Related Words

• Antediluvial (adj): A less common synonym, also meaning "of or belonging to the period before the Flood."
• Pre-diluvian (adj): A synonym meaning "existing or occurring before the Flood."

Synonyms

• Archaic: Very old or old-fashioned.
• Obsolete: No longer produced or used; out of date.
• Prehistoric: Of or relating to the period before written records.
• Outmoded: No longer fashionable or in use.

Antonyms

• Modern: Of or relating to the present or recent times.
• Contemporary: Belonging to or occurring in the present.
• Current: Of the present time.
• Up-to-date: Incorporating the latest developments or styles.

Related Phrases and Idioms

• While not a phrasal verb, the term is often used in the phrase "antediluvian times/era/world" to refer to a very distant, almost mythical past.
  • It felt like we had stepped back into an antediluvian world, untouched by modern technology.

Adjective

1. so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period
   • a ramshackle antediluvian tenement
   • antediluvian ideas
   • archaic laws
2. of or relating to the period before the biblical flood
   • antediluvian man

Noun

1. a very old person
2. any of the early patriarchs who lived prior to the Noachian deluge