DictionaryAI

antebellum

adjective
Sayan-tee-BEL-um/ˌæn.tiˈbɛl.əm/

1 meaning of antebellum

Practice

  1. 1
    adjective
    Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American South before the American Civil War.

    The novel is set on an antebellum plantation outside Savannah.

    Historians have long debated how the cotton economy shaped antebellum Southern society.

    Oppositepostwar, postbellum

    Note

    In American writing it works almost as the name of an era: The Antebellum Period is the title James M. Volo and Dorothy Denneen Volo gave their 2004 book. It usually sits before a noun (antebellum plantation life, an antebellum mansion) and calls up the slaveholding South, columned plantation houses included, rather than the North of the same years.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

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Origin

Borrowed from Latin ante bellum, literally "before the war".

Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 1 fact

  • Antebellum was borrowed from Latin ante bellum, literally meaning “before the war”. en.wiktionary.org