Adjective

(en adjective)

Of or characterized by antiquity; old-fashioned, quaint, antiquated.

* 1848 , , 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 archaic , 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 , , Historia Numorum A Manual Of Greek Numismatics :

There is in the best archaic coin work [of the Greeks] ... a strength and a delicacy which are often wanting in the fully developed art of a later age.

* 1898 , , The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast :

Brann's compass of words, idioms and phrases harks back to the archaic and reaches forward to the futuristic.'' Volume 1

(of words) No longer in ordinary use, though still used occasionally to give a sense of antiquity.

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Belonging to the archaic period

Adjective

(en-adj)

Having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age; very old.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=‘I understand that the district was considered a sort of sanctuary,’ the Chief was saying. ‘An Alsatia like the ancient one behind the Strand, or the Saffron Hill before the First World War. […]’}}

Existent or occurring in time long past, usually in remote ages; belonging to or associated with antiquity; old, as opposed to modern.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black), title=Internal Combustion

, chapter=2 citation , passage=Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia. This ceaseless industrial fueling caused the deforestation of an estimated fifty to seventy million acres of woodlands.}}

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)

, title= Geothermal Energy , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.}}

(label) Relating to antiquity as a primarily European historical period; the time before the Middle Ages.

(obsolete) Experienced; versed.

* Berners

Though [he] was the youngest brother, yet he was the most ancient in the business of the realm.

(obsolete) Former; sometime.

* Alexander Pope

They mourned their ancient leader lost.