pre-Elizabethan

American  

[pree-i-liz-uh-bee-thuhn, -beth-uhn] / ˌpri ɪˌlɪz əˈbi θən, -ˈbɛθ ən /

adjective

1. (of English culture, history, traditions, etc.) before the reign of Queen Elizabeth I; before the second half of the 16th century.

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Example Sentences

The play springs from the earliest roots of pre-Elizabethan drama.

From Time Magazine Archive

When British Garage Owner Arthur Lindley surveyed the creaking, pre-Elizabethan cottage he owns next door to his gasoline station at Piccott's End near Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, he saw a depressing sight.

From Time Magazine Archive

One of our old pre-Elizabethan writers has put it in classic form in English:— The falling out of faithful friends is the renewing of love.

From Friendship by Black, Hugh

Authoritative for the pre-Elizabethan drama, with valuable bibliography and appendices.

From The Facts About Shakespeare by Nielson, William Allan

The first three—the excerpt from Wilson's Art of Rhetoric, Sir Philip Sidney's Letter to his brother Robert, and the dissertation from Meres's Palladis Tamia—are, if minor, certainly characteristic examples of pre-Elizabethan and Elizabethan literary criticism.

From An English Garner Critical Essays & Literary Fragments by Arber, Thomas Seccombe, Professor