pre-Columbian

American  

[pree-kuh-luhm-bee-uhn] / ˌpri kəˈlʌm bi ən /

adjective

1. of or relating to the Americas before the arrival of Columbus.

   pre-Columbian art; pre-Columbian Indians.

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pre-Columbian British  

adjective

1. of or relating to the Americas before they were discovered by Columbus

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Etymology

Origin of pre-Columbian

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

A case in point is the Inca Road, arguably the greatest infrastructure accomplishment of pre-Columbian times.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 10, 2025

Mexican anthropologist and sculptor Francisco Cornejo assisted the architects to craft a building that was based on authentic designs of pre-Columbian American societies.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 14, 2025

The terrain is difficult enough and inaccessible enough that it likely would not have been utilized even by pre-Columbian peoples, certainly not in a permanent way.

From Salon • Apr. 26, 2025

"The whistles have a very unique construction, and we don't know of any comparable musical instrument from other pre-Columbian cultures or from other historical and contemporary contexts," says Frühholz.

From Science Daily • Nov. 19, 2024

Las Casas’s successors usually shared his ideas—the eighteenth- century Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero, for example, asserted that the pre-Columbian population of Mexico alone was thirty million.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann