antediluvian

Meanings

Plural: antediluvians

Noun

any of the early patriarchs who lived prior to the Noachian deluge
a very old person
A person who lived in the time prior to the great flood described in Genesis, especially one of the biblical patriarchs.
A very old person.
A person with extremely old-fashioned attitudes, ideas, etc., especially to a laughable extent; a fogey or old fogey.

Adjective

of or relating to the period before the biblical flood
- "antediluvian man"

Adjective Satellite

so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period
- "a ramshackle antediluvian tenement"
- "antediluvian ideas"

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.
Of animals and plants: long extinct; prehistoric.
Of a person or thing: very old; ancient.
Of attitudes, ideas, etc.: extremely old-fashioned, especially to a laughable extent; antiquated.

Origin / 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 word is analyzable as ante- + diluvian.
Sense 2 (“long extinct”) is from the fact that such animals and plants were originally believed to have perished in the biblical flood referred to above.

Synonyms

age-old, aged, ager, anachronistic, ancient, antediluvial, antediluvian, antediluvian patriarch, antiquated, antique, archaic, auld, backward, backwards, badge-cove, behind the times, cheeser, cobwebbed, cobwebby, coffin dodger, crinkly, dated, decrepit, defunct, discontinued, disused, dootsie, eld, elder, elderly, eldern, expired, extinct, fossilized, geezer, genarian, geriatric, gray, grayhead, greyhead, Havishamesque, hoarhead, hoary, idle, Miss Havishamesque, moss-grown, mzee, no spring chicken, obsolete, old, old as the hills, old as the Pyramids, old school, old timer, old-fashioned, old-timer, olden, older adult, older than dirt, older than the hills, older than the Pyramids, oldfangled, oldie, oldster, oldtimer, out of date, out of fashion, out of the ark, outdated, outmoded, outworn, parachronistic, passé, prediluvian, preflood, prehistoric, senior, senior citizen, silver top, superannuated, superseded, twirly, unemployed, unoccupied, venerable, weazen, wintry, workless, wrinkly

Antonyms

adult, elderly, grownup, old

Scrabble Score: 16

antediluvian is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
antediluvian is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
antediluvian is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 21

antediluvian is a valid Words With Friends word