Etymology

late antiquity

Today it means: The period of Mediterranean and Eurasian history from around the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE, marked especially by the transition from the Roman and Persian Empires to the Middle Ages and the Islamic and Byzantine civilizations. Full definition →

German Spätantike
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The story

  1. German · calque ofSpätantike
  2. English todayLate Antiquity

A calque of German Spätantike. Popularised in English by American historian Peter Brown with his influential 1971 book The World of Late Antiquity.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.