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What is Full Form of BC, AD, CE
By BYJU'S Exam Prep
Updated on: September 25th, 2023
You must have come across the terms BC, AD and CE quite a few times in history textbooks as they are frequently used abbreviations. These terms are mostly used in the context of history and give an idea of the date and time of an incident. But have you ever wondered what they mean? We are here to solve your query.
Table of content
BC Full Form
BC is a term from the Julian and Gregorian calendars that stands for ‘Before Christ’ or before the birth of Christ. Such dates were used in scholarly writings of 17th century across different cultures. This concept is unique as it does not pretend to know the birth year of Christ, which is unknown. It only denotes an era centuries before the period of Christ began.
AD Full Form
The term AD stands for ‘Anno Domini’, which means “in the year of the Lord,” and comes from medieval Latin. Simply put, AD represents the period years after the birth of Christ.
CE full form
The abbreviation CE stands for ‘Common era’ and is commonly used by the Jews and other non-Christian communities to refer to the same system. The phrase ‘common era’ first appeared in 1708 in the English language and soon became popular when used by the Jewish religious experts in the mid-19th century. Many people consider this phrase more inclusive to non-Christian folks. Another term from the Gregorian calendar is BCE which means Before Common Era.
Summary:
What are the full forms of BC, AD, and CE?
The full forms of the abbreviations BC, AD, and CE are Before Christ, Anno Domini and Common Era. These terms are a part of a dating system known as the Julian and Gregorian calendars that use the birth of Jesus Christ as a concept of counting years.
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