Definition of archaic

English Dictionary - With Multi-Lingual Search

archaic
adjective (more archaic, most archaic)

of or characterized by antiquity or archaism, antiquated, primitive, old-fashioned, as an archaic word or phrase

- 1848: w:James Russel Lowell, James Russel Lowell, The Biglow Papers - A person familiar with the dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail to recognize, in ordinary discourse, many words now noted in English vocabularies as , the greater part of which were in common use about the time of the King James translation of the Bible. Shakespeare stands less in need of a glossary to most New Englanders than to many a native of the Old Country.
- 1887: w:Barcley V. Head, Barcley V. Head, Historia Numorum A Manual Of Greek Numismatics - There is in the best coin work of the Greeks ... a strength and a delicacy which are often wanting in the fully developed art of a later age.
  1. (context, of words or language style) no longer in ordinary use, though still used occasionally to give a sense of antiquity. See talk page.
  1898 Brann's compass of words, idioms and phrases harks back to the archaic and reaches forward to the futuristic." William Cowper Brann, The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=106379045&tag=Brann,+William+Cowper:+The+Complete+Works+of+Brann+the+Iconoclast,+Volume+1,+1898&query=archaic&id=Bra1Ico Volume 1.

Etymology: Ancient Greek (archaikos) "old-fashioned", from (archaios) "from the beginning, antiquated, ancient, old", from (archí) "beginning, origin, at first, anew, afresh", from (archí) "to be first".

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