Linear B

noun

: a linear form of writing employing syllabic characters and used at Knossos on Crete and on the Greek mainland from the 15th to the 12th centuries b.c. for documents in Mycenaean Greek

Examples of Linear B in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recently, researchers from MIT and Google applied these abilities to ancient scripts – Linear B and Ugaritic (a precursor of Hebrew) – with reasonable success (no luck so far with the older, and as-yet undeciphered Linear A). Mary Lou Jepsen John Ryan, WIRED, 29 Dec. 2019 Egypt’s hieroglyphs and the Mycenaean script known as Linear B were also notoriously indecipherable—until the Rosetta Stone and a British genius produced working keys. Ariel Sabar, The Atlantic, 8 Aug. 2024 More tantalizing than even the story of Alice Kober’s work on Linear B, for Meiklejohn, was the fact that no one had been able to decipher Linear A, even after a century of study. Andy Greenberg, Ars Technica, 18 Jan. 2024 While it was determined in the 1950s that Linear B was used to jot down ancient Greek, very little is known about what spoken language Cretan hieroglyphics and Linear A were used to record. Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 5 June 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1950, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of Linear B was in 1950

Dictionary Entries Near Linear B

Cite this Entry

“Linear B.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Linear%20B. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on Linear B

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!