pre-Columbian
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of pre-Columbian
First recorded in 1885–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
King Felipe VI made the remarks while speaking with Mexico’s ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, during a visit to a museum exhibition in Madrid about the role of women in pre-Columbian Mexico.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2026
In that time, he has brought to life a megasculpture 1.5 miles long by a half-mile wide—informed, he has said, by ritual sites and monuments of the pre-Columbian age.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026
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
Ancient Aztec communities from the pre-Columbian period of Mesoamerica had a rich mythological codex that was also part of their ritual and sacrificial ceremonies.
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
