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adjective (more archaic, most archaic)
- of or characterized by antiquity or archaism, antiquated, primitive, old-fashioned, as an archaic word or phrase
- 1848: w:James Russel Lowell, James Russel Lowell, 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 , 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: w:Barcley V. Head, Barcley V. Head, Historia Numorum A Manual Of Greek Numismatics - There is in the best coin work of the Greeks ... a strength and a delicacy which are often wanting in the fully developed art of a later age.
- (context, of words or language style) no longer in ordinary use, though still used occasionally to give a sense of antiquity. See talk page.
- 1898 Brann's compass of words, idioms and phrases harks back to the archaic and reaches forward to the futuristic." William Cowper Brann, The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=106379045&tag=Brann,+William+Cowper:+The+Complete+Works+of+Brann+the+Iconoclast,+Volume+1,+1898&query=archaic&id=Bra1Ico Volume 1.
Etymology: Ancient Greek (archaikos) "old-fashioned", from (archaios) "from the beginning, antiquated, ancient, old", from (archí) "beginning, origin, at first, anew, afresh", from (archí) "to be first".
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Full Definition of archaic
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