What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Effete vs Archaic - What's the difference?

effete | archaic |

As adjectives the difference between effete and archaic

is that effete is (label) of substances, quantities etc: exhausted, spent, worn-out while archaic is of or characterized by antiquity; old-fashioned, quaint, antiquated.

As a noun archaic is

(archaeology|us|usually capitalized) a general term for the prehistoric period intermediate between the earliest period (‘[http://enwikipediaorg/wiki/paleo-indian paleo-indian]’, ‘paleo-american’, ‘american‐paleolithic’, &c ) of human presence in the western hemisphere, and the most recent prehistoric period (‘woodland’, etc).

effete

English

Alternative forms

*

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (label) Of substances, quantities etc: exhausted, spent, worn-out.
  • *, II.4.1.v:
  • Nature is not effœte , as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to shew her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed.
  • Of people: lacking strength or vitality; feeble, powerless, impotent.
  • *
  • Amid the effete monarchies and princedoms of feudal Europe, morally and materially exhausted by the Thirty Years' War, the only hope of resistance to France lay in the little Republic of merchants, Holland.
  • Decadent, weak through self-indulgence.
  • Effeminate.
  • *
  • a good-humored, effete boy brought up by maiden aunts.

    Derived terms

    * effetely * effeteness

    archaic

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (archaeology, US, usually capitalized) A general term for the prehistoric period intermediate between the earliest period (‘ Paleo-Indian’, ‘Paleo-American’, ‘American?paleolithic’, &c .) of human presence in the Western Hemisphere, and the most recent prehistoric period (‘Woodland’, etc.).
  • * 1958 , Wiley, Gordon R., and Philip Phillips, Method and Theory in American Archaeology , University of Chicago Press, Chicago, page #107:
  • [...] Archaic Stage [...] the stage of migratory hunting and gathering cultures continuing into environmental conditions approximately those of the present.
  • (paleoanthropology) (A member of) an archaic variety of Homo sapiens .
  • * 2009 , The Human Lineage , page 432:
  • [...] prefer the third explanation for the advanced-looking features of Neandertals (Chapter 7) and the Ngandong hominins (Chapter 6), but they have had little to say about the post-Erectine archaics from China.

    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.
  • *
  • * '>citation
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • Belonging to the archaic period
  • Synonyms

    * dated * obsolete * old fashioned

    Derived terms

    * archaically, archaism

    References

    * * *