First vs Ancient - What's the difference?
first | ancient | Related terms |
Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2
, passage=Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.}}
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.
* 1784 : William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c. ,
Before anything else; firstly.
* , chapter=8
, title= * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (uncountable) The person or thing in the first position.
* 1699 , ,
(uncountable) The first gear of an engine.
(countable) Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.
(countable, baseball) first base
(countable, British, colloquial) A first-class honours degree.
(countable, colloquial) A first-edition copy of some publication.
A fraction of an integer ending in one.
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 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 * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=(Henry Petroski)
, title= (label) Relating to antiquity as a primarily European historical period; the time before the Middle Ages.
(obsolete) Experienced; versed.
* Berners
(obsolete) Former; sometime.
* Alexander Pope
A person who is very old.
A person who lived in ancient times.
(heraldry, archaic) A flag, banner, standard or ensign.
* 1719 ,
(UK, legal) One of the senior members of the Inns of Court or of Chancery.
(obsolete) A senior; an elder; a predecessor.
* Hooker
First is a related term of ancient.
As nouns the difference between first and ancient
is that first is ridge (of roof) while ancient is a person who is very old.As an adjective ancient is
having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age; very old.first
English
(wikipedia first)Etymology 1
From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) (m), .Alternative forms
* firste (archaic) * fyrst (obsolete) * fyrste (obsolete)Adjective
(-)Yesterday’s fuel, passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).}}
PREFACE
- THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Per?ons of the fir?t di?tinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ?everal new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and di?tingui?h it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.
Alternative forms
* ; (in names of monarchs and popes) IAdverb
(-)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.}}
Unspontaneous combustion, passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.}}
Noun
Heads designed for an essay on conversations
- Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.
Derived terms
* feet first * firstborn * first-class * first gear * first imperative (Latin grammar) * first of all * first place * first things first * first upSee also
* primaryEtymology 2
From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) (m), (m), . See also (l).Statistics
*ancient
English
(wikipedia ancient)Alternative forms
* anchient, antient, aunchient, auncient, auntient, awncient, awntient (obsolete)Adjective
(en-adj)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. […]’}}
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.}}
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.}}
- Though [he] was the youngest brother, yet he was the most ancient in the business of the realm.
- They mourned their ancient leader lost.
Antonyms
* modernDerived terms
* Ancient Egypt * Ancient Greece * ancient lights * Ancient Macedonian * ancient pyramid * Ancient Rome * ancientryNoun
(en noun)- I got all things ready as he had directed, and waited the next morning with the boat washed clean, her ancient and pendants out, and everything to accommodate his guests..
- Junius and Andronicus were his ancients .