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Contemporary vs Antique - What's the difference?

contemporary | antique |

As adjectives the difference between contemporary and antique

is that contemporary is from the same time period, coexistent in time while antique is old, used especially of furniture and household items; out of date.

As nouns the difference between contemporary and antique

is that contemporary is someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another while antique is an old piece of furniture, household item, or other similar item.

As a verb antique is

to shop for antiques; to search for antiques.

contemporary

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • From the same time period, coexistent in time.
  • * Cowley
  • A grove born with himself he sees, / And loves his old contemporary trees.
  • * Strype
  • This king was contemporary with the greatest monarchs of Europe.
  • Modern, of the present age.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=May 24 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3 , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Men In Black 3 finagles its way out of this predicament by literally resetting the clock with a time-travel premise that makes Will Smith both a contemporary intergalactic cop in the late 1960s and a stranger to Josh Brolin, who plays the younger version of Smith’s stone-faced future partner, Tommy Lee Jones.}}
  • Relatively recent
  • Synonyms

    * contemporaneous

    Antonyms

    * anachronistic: in the wrong time period * archaic

    Noun

    (contemporaries)
  • Someone or something living at the same time, or of roughly the same age as another.
  • ''Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare.
    ''The early mammals inherited the earth by surviving their saurian contemporaries .
  • Something existing at the same time.
  • antique

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Old, used especially of furniture and household items; out of date.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
  • , title= , chapter=1 citation , passage=“There the cause of death was soon ascertained?; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom. […]”}}

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An old piece of furniture, household item, or other similar item.
  • An old person.
  • Verb

    (antiqu)
  • (label) To shop for antiques; to search for antiques.
  • (label) To make an object appear to be an antique in some way.