Why pre-dreadnought is a retrospective label

Calling older battleships pre-dreadnoughts defines them through a later ship rather than through their own design context. The comparison offered here labels every earlier battleship pre-Vanguard, which would put even the Iowa class in a category defined by a later British ship. That absurd result shows how a retrospective label can obscure relationships that mattered to contemporaries. Historical categories remain useful when they explain more than chronological priority. Naval terminology should support analysis rather than replace it.