Adjacent Words

archaic definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period; "a ramshackle antediluvian tenement"; "antediluvian ideas"; "archaic laws" [syn: antediluvian, antiquated, archaic]
2: little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type; "archaic forms of life"; "primitive mammals"; "the okapi is a short-necked primitive cousin of the giraffe" [syn: archaic, primitive]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: French or Greek; French archaïque, from Greek archaïkos, from archaios Date: 1832 1. having the characteristics of the language of the past and surviving chiefly in specialized uses <an archaic word> 2. of, relating to, or characteristic of an earlier or more primitive time ; antiquated <archaic legal traditions> 3. capitalized of or belonging to the early or formative phases of a culture or a period of artistic development; especially of or belonging to the period leading up to the classical period of Greek culture 4. surviving from an earlier period; specifically typical of a previously dominant evolutionary stage 5. capitalized of or relating to the period from about 8000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. and the North American cultures of that time Synonyms: see old • archaically adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 a antiquated. b (of a word etc.) no longer in ordinary use, though retained for special purposes. 2 primitive. 3 of an early period of art or culture, esp. the 7th-6th c. BC in Greece. Derivatives: archaically adv. Etymology: F archa{iuml}que f. Gk arkha{iuml}kos (as ARCHAEAN)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Archaic Ar*cha"ic, a. [Gr. 'archai:ko`s old-fashioned, fr. 'archai^os ancient.] Of or characterized by antiquity or archaism; antiquated; obsolescent.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Archaic means extremely old or extremely old-fashioned. ...archaic laws that are very seldom used... = antiquated ADJ: usu ADJ n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Old, ancient, obsolete, antiquated, antique, bygone, out of use, out of date, out of fashion, old-fashioned.

Moby Thesaurus

Gothic, Victorian, abandoned, abjured, antediluvian, antiquated, antique, behind the times, bygone, classical, dated, deserted, discontinued, disused, done with, fossil, fossilized, grown old, medieval, mid-Victorian, not worth saving, obsolescent, obsolete, of other times, old, old-fashioned, old-timey, old-world, on the shelf, out, out of use, out-of-date, outdated, outmoded, outworn, passe, past use, pensioned off, petrified, relinquished, renounced, resigned, retired, superannuate, superannuated, superseded, undeveloped, worn-out