premodern
Pre-industrial era's descriptor
Premodern describes the era before modernity—roughly before the Enlightenment, industrialization, and the rise of scientific rationalism.
The term appears in historical and academic contexts to characterize societies, beliefs, or practices from earlier periods: premodern medicine, premodern conceptions of the self.
What counts as premodern depends on the field; in architecture it might mean before modernism, while in philosophy it often means before Descartes.
Old and outdated
- bygoneOf earlier times
- outmodedNo longer in fashion
- outdatedNo longer in use
- old-fashionedBelonging to earlier times
anachronistic · olden · primitive · old-world · antediluvian · superannuated · passe · dated
Land-for-service social structure
- knightsTitled warriors on horseback
- castlesFortified royal residences
- chivalryKnightly code of honor
- serfsFeudal bound laborers
vassals · crusades · manor · fiefdom · heraldry · jousting · monastery · tapestries
Inherited cultural narratives
- mythologyBody of traditional tales
- ritualsCeremonial repeated practices
- customsTraditional practices or import taxes
- heritageInherited cultural legacy
handicrafts · artisanal · oral-history · superstitions · kinship · agrarian · nomadic · tribal
antiquated
Old and outdated
old-fashioned · anachronistic · olden · primitive · old-world · antediluvian · superannuated · passe · dated · quaint
feudalism
Land-for-service social structure
serfs · vassals · crusades · manor · fiefdom · heraldry · jousting · monastery · tapestries · minstrels
folklore
Inherited cultural narratives
- mythologyBody of traditional tales
- ritualsCeremonial repeated practices
- customsTraditional practices or import taxes
heritage · handicrafts · artisanal · oral-history · superstitions · kinship · agrarian · nomadic · tribal · shamanism
antiquity
Great age, ancient era
- pharaohsAncient Egypt's supreme rulers
- pyramidsApex-topped geometric solids
- zigguratsMesopotamian terraced temple structures
hieroglyphics · sphinx · mummies · paleolithic · neolithic · megaliths · cuneiform
- historical erasStone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Middle Ages, Renaissance
- outdatedobsolete, outdated, out of date, dated, outmoded
- vintagevintage, antique, retro, old-fashioned, nostalgic
premodernmodern
Of recent times
contemporary · postmodern · present-day · current · recent
premodernmodern
Of recent times
industrialized · developed · advanced · technological · mechanized
premodernmodern
Of recent times
postmodern · secular · rationalist · scientific · Enlightenment
modern, modernize, modernized, modernist, modernity, modernism, modernizing, postmodernity