avant la lettre
Before the term was coinedBefore the term was coined (the term being a word or phrase used just previously in an anachronistic way)
Meaning
1 senses(idiomatic)Before the term was coined (the term being a word or phrase used just previously in an anachronistic way)
Suffragettes were feminists avant la lettre.
Translations
3 languagesOrigin
Borrowed from French avant la lettre (literally “before the letter”).Borrowed from French avant la lettre (literally “before the letter”).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Word family
2 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.