IRON AGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Iron Age mean? 

• IRON AGE (noun)
  The noun IRON AGE has 2 senses:

1. (archeology) the period following the Bronze Age; characterized by rapid spread of iron tools and weapons

2. (classical mythology) the last and worst age of the world

  Familiarity information: IRON AGE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IRON AGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(archeology) the period following the Bronze Age; characterized by rapid spread of iron tools and weapons

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Instance hypernyms:

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Domain category:

archaeology; archeology (the branch of anthropology that studies prehistoric people and their cultures)

Holonyms ("Iron Age" is a part of...):

prehistoric culture; prehistory (the time during the development of human culture before the appearance of the written word)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(classical mythology) the last and worst age of the world

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("iron age" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Domain category:

classical mythology (the system of mythology of the Greeks and Romans together; much of Roman mythology (especially the gods) was borrowed from the Greeks)

 Context examples 

To many in those ancient days the tourney may have seemed a bloody and brutal ordeal, but we who look at it with ample perspective see that it was a rude but gallant preparation for the conditions of life in an iron age.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)