Word.ws English Dictionary

prehuman

prehuman adjective: preceding the advent of modern humanity, Homo sapiens.

Adjective

prehuman (not comparable)

  1. Preceding the advent of modern humanity, Homo sapiens.
    • In the recently opened Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, there are more than 200 casts of prehuman and human fossils and artifacts that illustrate stages in physical and behavioral evolution.2007 March 9, The New York Times, “Spare Times”, in New York Times
    Synonyms:
    antehuman

Noun

prehuman (plural prehumans)

  1. One of the human-like creatures that existed before Homo sapiens.
    • They said the find also added to evidence that painted a picture of Homo erectus as the prehumans who took long evolutionary strides — figuratively and, now it seems, also literally.2009 February 27, John Noble Wilford, “Prints Show a Modern Foot in Prehumans”, in New York Times

Synonyms of prehuman

Antonyms

Forms of prehuman

pluralprehumans

Origin of prehuman

From pre- + human.

Questions about prehuman

What does prehuman mean?
Prehuman means preceding the advent of modern humanity, Homo sapiens.
What part of speech is prehuman?
Prehuman can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near prehuman in the dictionary

  1. prehorse
  2. prehospital
  3. prehospitalization
  4. prehospitally
  5. prehostility
  6. prehuman
  7. prehumans
  8. prehumiliation
  9. prehumous
  10. prehumously
  11. prehung

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prehuman (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “prehuman.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prehuman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.