CE stands for "Common Era"; BCE stands for "Before the Common Era."
BCE exactly corresponds to BC (which stands for "Before Christ").
In contrast, CE exactly corresponds to AD (which stands for Anno Domini, Latin for "in the year of the lord," usually written before rather than after the year number). Comment:The substitution of BCE/CE for the traditional BC/AD does not represent a change in the way time is calculated, but is merely political correctness on the part of some modern English speakers seeking to avoid public references to Christianity. Accordingly it is important to understand that CE and BCE do not refer to "Christian Era" and "Before the Christian Era." (If you are not particularly keen on political correctness, you may wish to make that mistake in order to make your reader or listener have a bird, of course.)
(If they had had a course in anthropological linguistics, the advocates for the new terms would have realized that the expressions "BC" and "AD" are way too threadbare to bring Christianity to mind for an English reader, whereas changing the abbreviations has exactly that effect. As they become sufficiently widespread, the new terms too are becoming inconspicuous, of course. They would also have noticed that CE and BCE have a higher risk of misapplication than BC and AD because all that differentiates them is the B.)
(Observation: People who prefer the terms CE and BCE in order to expunge the reference to Christianity seem to have little trouble using the equally religion-infused term holy land.)
Definition Revised: 2017-11-12
Script Last Modified: 2025-02-04
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