Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to the advanced Bronze Age culture that flourished in Crete from about 3000 to 1100 BC.
  • noun A native or inhabitant of ancient Crete.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to Minos, the traditional monarch and lawgiver of Crete, and especially to the palace of Minos, a prehistoric edifice on the site of ancient Cnosus, in Crete, the excavation of which was begun by Arthur J. Evans in 1900.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or relating to the civilization that developed in Crete from the neolithic period to the Bronze Age (about 3000-1050 BCE).
  • adjective Of or relating to the writing systems (Linear A and Linear B) used in Crete and later in mainland Greece.
  • adjective Of or relating to the ancient language of the Minoans which died out by the beginning of the 1st millenium BCE.
  • noun A Cretan who belonged to the Minoan civilization.
  • proper noun the language written in Linear A

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a Cretan who lived in the bronze-age culture of Crete about 3000-1100 BC
  • adjective of or relating to or characteristic of the Bronze Age culture of Crete

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin Mīnōus, of Minos, from Greek Mīnōios, from Mīnōs, Minos.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Sir Arthur Evans, not knowing the Minoan term for 'Minoan' at the time, coined this name in the early 20th century, from Ancient Greek Μίνως (Minos), the mythical king of Crete. The actual name is probably reflected in Egyptian *Káftayu (spelled out in Egyptian only as kftiw) and Biblical Kaphtor.

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Examples

  • History's Mysteries' take is that what we call Minoan civilization may have actually been Atlantean.

    Was Goliath an Atlantean? Michael May 2008

  • And he believed, what we now know to be the fact, that even before the Homeric there had been a wonderful island-culture, what we call the Minoan, flourishing before the Homeric.

    Progress and History Francis Sydney Marvin 1903

  • The island of Crete was the centre of civilisation now called Minoan, after the Minoas who lingered in ancient legend and whose labyrinth was actually discovered by modern archeology.

    "The Everlasting Man" by G.K. Chesterton 2006

  • This earliest civilization in Crete is called Minoan after the legendary King Minos of Knossos.

    b. The Minoan Civilization 2001

  • From the busy intercourse of these land-locked waters arose the civilization called Minoan, or Aegean, centring in Crete, itself to be surpassed by the trading activity of the

    The Unity of Civilization Various

  • Lapatin shows that almost all of these, as well as a substantial number of other "Minoan" objects, are certain forgeries.

    Knossos: Fakes, Facts, and Mystery Beard, Mary 2009

  • The rest is more or less imaginative reconstruction, commissioned in the first half of the twentieth century by Sir Arthur Evans, the British excavator of the palace of Knossos (and the man who coined the term "Minoan" for this prehistoric Cretan civilization, after the mythical King Minos who is said to have held the throne there).

    Knossos: Fakes, Facts, and Mystery Beard, Mary 2009

  • It was only after he had started excavating the palace that he coined the term "Minoan" and that early-twentieth-century archaeologists, artists, and thinkers combined their efforts to create an image of a peaceable, prepatriarchal prehistory to match.

    Knossos: Fakes, Facts, and Mystery Beard, Mary 2009

  • How do these early "Minoan" forgeries fit into the history of forgery in the broader sense?

    Talking About Fakes 2004

  • The "Minoan" forgeries differ from these in that they sold for a lot of money and helped to shape our view of a newly discovered ancient civilization.

    Talking About Fakes 2004

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