ANTEDILUVIAN

adj. of or pertaining to the times before the flood in the days of Noah.

"My grandfather had gone so long without buying new underwear that the pair we found him in appeared to be antediluvian."

"My grandfather had gone so long without buying new underwear that the pair we found him in appeared to be ancient."

"My grandfather's underwear was really really old."

Although I use this word, unkindly, to refer to my grandfather's undergarments, its not really too far off the mark. They have holes in them and they're stained and pretty much falling off of him. Don't ask me how I know that.

Breaking it down into its root parts we have "ante-" (Latin "before") and "diluvium" (also Latin, duh, "deluge").

Anyway...a good way to remember this word would be with the phrase "Noah wore antediluvian underpants." Noah lived a long time ago (presumably) and his underpants (unless he went commando) would have been truly ancient. I'm sure you can all imagine what hilarious cartoon is in the works for my demonstration of the meaning of this word. What's my fixation with old man's underpants all about? Well, if you've read my profile, I am 796 years old, so my underpants are also pretty old. Which reminds me, I got a gift certificate for freshpair.com for Christmas. I hope they have something that can contain my gnomebulge!

Oh yeah, also, Happy New Year!