Why aren't there entries for paleolithic and mesolithic? [closed]
I don’t understand how you could have missed them, but the OED provides these figurative, depreciative, colloquial, and humorous senses for these terms listed from oldest to youngest, and with at least one recent citation provided for each (there are often many more):
stone age, n.
- b. figurative, esp. as the type of an outmoded or unsophisticated era. Also attributive and as adj.
- 1981 Quarto May 4/2
In the age of computerised type-setting, the technology of the book trade seems more and more stone age.
Palaeolithic | Paleolithic, adj. and n.
A. adj.
depreciative. Frequently with lower-case initial. Belonging to a former era; antiquated, outdated, primitive. Cf. Neolithic adj. 2.
- 1993 Times 2 July 6/5
The tiny few who yearn for palaeolithic policies have to be left to their worn-out war cries.- 2000 Mark Barrowcliffe Girlfriend 44 iv. 130
‘What time is it?’ asked Alice. Gerrard reached into the musty depths of his pocket again for his Palaeolithic digital. ‘Half-past one,’ he said.
Neolithic, adj. and n.
A. adj.
- depreciative. In extended use: belonging to a former era; outdated or primitive. Cf. stone age n. b.
- 1993 Options Aug. 17/2
Women comedians can get away with more of the sexual stuff. If I did smutty jokes I'd look like a neolithic idiot.
medieval, adj. and n.
A. adj.
- † humorous. Of a person: middle-aged. Obsolete. rare.
- 1848 O. W. Holmes Nux Postcœnatica in Poems 261
A man of forty entered... They have a certain heartiness that frequently appals,—Those mediæval gentlemen in semilunar smalls!- colloquial.
a. Exhibiting the severity or illiberality ascribed to a former age; cruel, barbarous.
- 1988 Financial Times 8 June i. 44/3
He stressed he was not seeking vengeance or punishment but a deterrent. Hanging was ‘medieval and barbaric’ and there were more humane methods.B. n.
- A person who lived in the Middle Ages. Also: a person whose outlook or perspective is (regarded as) characteristic of or resembles that of the Middle Ages.
- 1990 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 35 84
Medievals had a habit of quoting standard authors from memory without giving references.
(They also provide various interesting notes for medieval about the history of the three- and four-syllable pronunciations of that term, as well as its several extant variant spellings, but that isn’t really relevant to your question.)
As to why they didn’t provide a corresponding depreciative sense in their respective entry for Mesolithic, one may only surmise that the editors and subeditors working on the project have thus far encountered no such sense attributed to that term in the written record, or at least that they did not find it of extensive enough use to merit inclusion.
They do, however, note in their frequency tables that Mesolithic occurs an order of magnitude less frequently than do the other two. That may also figure in the matter.
Should you possess written citations for this depreciative sense of Mesolithic whose existence you hypothesize, you should contact the OED and present them with said documentary evidence for their records and for their consideration in some future update of that entry, which has not been updated since 2001.