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Glite Dictionary
before Christ

before Christ

2 4.8
Placed after a year number to show the year is before the birth of Jesus Christ
  • adverb
translation icon : antes de Cristo
  • In its first part, FOCUS describes the Sahara region as it was thousands of years ago—an area rich in wildlife and plants where humans settled and even built a 500-meter long by 5-meter wide protective wall 1,000 years before Christ.
  • century before Christ
  • years before Christ

That's when we go from BC before Christ to AD.

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Examples

  • In the fifth century before Christ, as Plato tells in his early dialogues, Socrates asked the Athenians -- friends, enemies, and strangers -- what their concepts meant, as if the unexamined life were not worth living.

    Academic text (2005)

  • That was six centuries before Christ.

    The Pawnbroker (1965)

  • So yes, before Christ came to earth, there were other religions.

    Blog text (2)

  • There were many religions that existed before Christ.

    Blog text (2)

  • It recounts the history of some tribes of Israel that migrated to North America centuries before Christ.

    Blog text (9)

  • Several thousand years before Christ, Hammurabi's famous legal code would describe the clan leader as a shepherd chosen "to care for the people and cause them to dwell in peace and security, that the great should not oppress the weak."

    Academic text (2005)

  • The ancient Egyptians built impressive pyramids around 2,500 years before Christ.

  • Centuries before Christ, early philosophers began to question the nature of existence.

  • Historians often study events that occurred before Christ to understand the origins of civilization.

Synonyms

BCE
vsbefore Christ
1 4.4

A label that comes after a year number to show the year is before the Common Era

is the traditional religious term rather than a neutral short form
BC
vsbefore Christ
2.9

Placed after a year to show the year is before the birth of Christ

is the full spelled-out phrase rather than the abbreviation
B.C.
vsbefore Christ
3.4

A mark after a year that shows the year is before the birth of Jesus

is the full phrase rather than a punctuated short form
B.C.E.
vsbefore Christ
5.2

A short form that shows years before the Common Era

is the standard religious wording rather than a secular short form

Surface Forms

before Christ positive
BC positive

Morphology

before + Christ

The phrase is directly compositional: 'before' (earlier in time) + 'Christ' (Jesus) clearly yields a temporal reference to years preceding Christ's life/birth, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer its dating meaning. Its use as a conventional calendar marker (BC) and the presence of equivalent expressions in many languages further support full transparency.

Etymology

Before Christ comes from using the birth of Christ as the main point for counting years. Years earlier were written as 'before Christ' (often short 'BC'), so 500 before Christ means 500 years before his birth.