Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who lived before Adam; an inhabitant of the earth before the date assigned to Adam.
- noun One who holds that there were men in existence upon the earth before Adam.
- Existing or being prior to Adam.
- Pertaining to the preadamites; relating to the period of the world's history prior to the time of Adam: as, the preadamite theory.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An inhabitant of the earth before Adam.
- noun One who holds that men existed before Adam.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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This frightful mask of electric sparks suggests to me, even in this dizzy excitement, a comparison with preadamite man, the contemporary of the ichthyosaurus and the megatherium.
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I thought I could see floating on the surface of the waters enormous chelonia, preadamite tortoises, resembling floating islands.
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I am trying to recall the peculiar instincts of the monsters of the preadamite world, who, coming next in succession after the molluscs, the crustaceans and le fishes, preceded the animals of mammalian race upon the earth.
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Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the preadamite family of the Saurians.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860 Various
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Turkish blue and emerald green, and every jewel of every land, lie amassed in gorgeous profusion in the adjoining cases, and seemed to realize the fabled treasures of the preadamite Sultans.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 394, October 17, 1829 Various
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As far as the eye could range forward were columns of steam in the air, misshapen lumps of lime, mist-like preadamite monsters, still pools of turquoise-blue stretches of blue corn-flowers, a river that coiled on itself twenty times, pointed bowlders of strange colors, and ridges of glaring, staring white.
American Notes Rudyard Kipling 1900
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Farther back, through a dusty cloud, I beheld dimly the seventy-two preadamite kings, with their seventy-two peoples, forever passed away.
Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes Mystic-Humorous Stories Joseph Lewis French 1897
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As far as the eye could range forward were columns of steam in the air, misshapen lumps of lime, mist-like preadamite monsters, still pools of turquoise-blue stretches of blue corn-flowers, a river that coiled on itself twenty times, pointed bowlders of strange colors, and ridges of glaring, staring white.
American Notes 1889
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If I were you I would sink a prospect shaft below the vertical slide where the old red brimstone and preadamite slag cross-cut the malachite and intersect the schist.
Remarks Bill Nye 1873
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This frightful mask of electric sparks suggests to me, even in this dizzy excitement, a comparison with preadamite man, the contemporary of the ichthyosaurus and the megatherium.
A Journey to the Interior of the Earth Jules Verne 1866
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