antebellum

American  

[an-tee-bel-uhm] / ˈæn tiˈbɛl əm /

adjective

1. before or existing before a war, especially the American Civil War; prewar.

   the antebellum plantations of Georgia.

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antebellum British  

/ ˌæntɪˈbɛləm /

adjective

1. of or during the period before a war, esp the American Civil War

   the antebellum South

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antebellum Cultural  

1. A descriptive term for objects and institutions, especially houses, that originated three or four decades before the Civil War. Antebellum is Latin for “before the war.”

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Etymology

Origin of antebellum

First recorded in 1860–65, antebellum is from Latin ante bellum “before the war”

Example Sentences

In the 1930s, the white matriarchs of tiny Natchez, Miss. — one of the 19th century’s wealthiest American towns thanks to the slavery-driven cotton trade — opened their stately antebellum mansions to save themselves from economic ruin.

From Los Angeles Times

In “The Sewards of New York,” Thomas P. Slaughter, the author of several books on Revolutionary-era and antebellum America, attempts the journey.

From The Wall Street Journal

He was the namesake of the boxer later known as Muhammad Ali, whose ancestors had been enslaved by the white Cassius’s cousin Henry Clay, the antebellum orator and senator.

From The Wall Street Journal

These developments set the course of the intertwined antebellum economy in the North and South—an enslaved workforce in the South and an industrialized workforce in the North.

From The Wall Street Journal

Experts said leaders from the antebellum South demanded similar enforcement of the law.

From Los Angeles Times