How to Use precolonial in a Sentence

precolonial

adjective
  • In precolonial times, with the influence of Malay ancestors, natives made cakes out of sticky rice and coconut milk.
    — Jasmine Ting, Bon Appétit, 7 Apr. 2021
  • The popular spirit dates back to precolonial times, and Oaxaca is the best place to sample its many styles and flavors.
    — Patricia Doherty, Travel + Leisure, 12 Mar. 2026
  • That rich pot of love has been a New World staple for centuries, dating back to precolonial times in Mexico.
    — Paul Stephen, San Antonio Express-News, 3 Nov. 2021
  • Few precolonial structures remain in New Zealand today.
    — Erin Florio, Condé Nast Traveler, 29 Mar. 2023
  • Its unique menu is a journey through time, starting in the precolonial era with pulque, made from agave sap and thought to be one of the oldest ferments in North America.
    — Nathanael Gassett, Bon Appetit Magazine, 23 Sep. 2025
  • Their press releases have heralded the reclamation of precolonial forms of knowledge like indigenous thought and magic.
    — Dean Kissick, Harper's Magazine, 2 Dec. 2024
  • Without action to restore these lands to something more closely resembling their precolonial conditions, many more sequoias will be lost, the experts fear.
    — Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2023
  • More research is needed, but even though some hunting pressure is evident, the general picture from the precolonial era is that deer seem to have been doing just fine for thousands of years.
    — Elic Weitzel, The Conversation, 29 May 2025
  • In precolonial times, fires would sweep through the million-acre Pinelands National Reserve every 50 years or so.
    — Jane Braxton Little, Scientific American, 23 Aug. 2023
  • Flames flickered on precolonial lands from lightning strikes and intentional fires set by Native Americans.
    — Martin Kuz, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Nov. 2020
  • Adam Gibson Few precolonial structures remain in New Zealand today.
    — Erin Florio, Condé Nast Traveler, 29 Mar. 2023
  • In the precolonial Igbo states of West Africa, power was often wielded by male chiefs or elders, but women had their own forms of authority as well.
    — The Editors, JSTOR Daily, 3 Mar. 2025
  • Ray also cooks with amaranth, another ancient precolonial ingredient often used in Pueblo cuisine.
    — Michael Shaikh june 25, Literary Hub, 25 June 2025
  • Action, betrayal, secrets, romance and powerful women fighting for a throne all against the backdrop of a precolonial Philippine nation!
    — Lizz Schumer, People.com, 27 Nov. 2024
  • The city was once the heart of the Kingdom of Benin, a powerful precolonial state known for its sophisticated governance and monumental earthworks.
    — Amir Daftari, MSNBC Newsweek, 3 Dec. 2025
  • The Greater Antilles and the Yucatán Peninsula form one of the most cavernous regions in the world, and many of these grottos contain precolonial inscriptions.
    — Carina Del Valle Schorske, New York Times, 20 Mar. 2024
  • Using Travels, Campbell pieced together the precolonial history of the river, before industry and tourism changed the landscape.
    — Kiley Bense, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024
  • For Indigenous artists, retrieving precolonial conceptions of gender can be a way to repudiate a colonial legacy of debasement and erasure.
    — New York Times, 17 Feb. 2022
  • These recipes—including pozole rojo, green chile tostadas, and mayocoba bean sopes—draw from traditional techniques and precolonial Indigenous ingredients like squash and corn.
    — Bon Appétit, 14 Mar. 2022
  • In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many nationalists began looking to the past, especially the precolonial past, for examples of Arab achievement and power.
    — Robyn Creswell, The New York Review of Books, 7 Oct. 2021
  • La Cerva favors that interpretation as well, noting that the precolonial forests and plains of North America were also gently groomed by humans to encourage the growth of game.
    — Outside Online, 24 May 2020
  • Others articulated vague utopian visions of small-farm collectives or precolonial communal agriculture.
    — Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs, 8 Dec. 2020
  • Anishinaabe people dreamed of a confederation in the Great Lakes, rising like a white mountain, one that reached back to precolonial days but also looked forward to a modern and united Indigenous people.
    — Literary Hub, 26 May 2026
  • For instance, the region’s huge tropical forests, coastlines, maritime boundaries, precolonial histories and diverse religions provide a richness that inspire and influence its contemporary artists.
    — Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
  • Across the archipelago, but especially in its capital of San Juan, vegan restaurants are offering locals and tourists signature meals rich in isle ingredients and precolonial techniques.
    — Raquel Reichard, Bon Appétit, 24 Feb. 2021
  • In these allegories of dehumanization, greed, and hope, Marshall takes an unvarnished view of his subjects, one that doesn’t sugarcoat the past or succumb to nostalgia for a mythical, precolonial Golden Age.
    — James Meyer, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2026
  • Honing in on the promotion of precolonial agricultural techniques, Mariposas Rebeldes guides Atlantans on monthly botanical walks, presents workshops with chefs, food scientists, and farmers, and hosts virtual drag shows.
    — Eva Reign, Vogue, 8 Mar. 2021
  • In the ‘60s, a precolonial Mayan codex, looted from some unknown locale in southwestern Mexico, materialized in a private collection in Mexico City.
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2022
  • Regardless of whether the banana plant grew within the ecosystems of the precolonial American tropics or not, Indigenous communities and ecologies across the region adapted to the banana plant in a variety of ways that would eventually come to be part of a sustained tradition.
    — Sophia Rey, JSTOR Daily, 28 May 2026
  • Inspired by the prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina, the system was originally designed as a means of broadening Islamic education in precolonial Nigeria.
    — Ogar Monday, Christian Science Monitor, 4 Feb. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'precolonial.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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