Meanings
- not comparablePertaining to or occurring in the hours just before dawn.
[I]n the lonely antelucan hour, when grey shades, material and mental, are so very grey.
1887, Thomas Hardy, chapter 4, in The Woodlanders, London: Macmillan2 more examples
How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour […].
1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 394[H]e was flung down on his knees, aghast and speechless, waiting for his vision of heaven or of hell, and weeping at the antelucan splendour of the stars.
2025, Warwick Wise, His Devilish Art, Ybernia, →ISBN, page 170
Origin
- Latinantelūcānus
- Englishantelucan
From Latin antelūcānus.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Italian antelucano
- antelucanobefore dawn
Portuguese antelucano
- antelucanobefore dawn
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
antelucan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antelucan
“antelucan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antelucan. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “antelucan,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/antelucan.
Source: antelucan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.