antebellum

[an-tee-bel-uhm]

adjective

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

   the antebellum plantations of Georgia.

antebellum

/ ˌæntɪˈbɛləm /

adjective

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

   the antebellum South

antebellum

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.”

Word History and Origins

Origin of antebellum¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of antebellum¹

Latin ante bellum, literally: before the war

Example Sentences

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.

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For Waite, the Wide Awakes can be compared to an antebellum antifa, while the paramilitaries of the South were more like modern Proud Boys.

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As it turned out, the idea of Black babies being used as alligator bait was a beloved trope dating back to the antebellum South, though it didn’t really take off until after the Civil War.

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

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Slaveowner statesmen of the antebellum South, like John C. Calhoun and Alexander Stephens, were plainly terrified of the racial apocalypse they feared might come with abolition, let alone any version of legal equality.

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