Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Occurring before daylight; preceding the dawn.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Held or being before light; -- a word applied to assemblies of Christians, in ancient times of persecution, held before light in the morning.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Before dawn

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Hardly anything could be more isolated or more self-contained than the lives of these two walking here in the lonely antelucan hour, when gray shades, material and mental, are so very gray.

    The Woodlanders 2006

  • Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer.

    Ulysses 2003

  • How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer.

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

  • Hardly anything could be more isolated or more self-contained than the lives of these two walking here in the lonely antelucan hour, when gray shades, material and mental, are so very gray.

    The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy 1884

Comments

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  • "How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour ..."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 14

    January 21, 2007

  • adj. - pertaining to or occurring before dawn.

    May 15, 2008

  • JM enjoyed his antelucan slumber before it dawned on him.

    November 26, 2009

  • uhtceare's long-suffering pawn

    Must pray for the coming of dawn,

    For fears antelucan,

    With birdsong and dew can

    Disperse like the mists of the morn.

    January 19, 2016