archaic

CEFRC2

/ɑːˈkeɪ.ɪk/

adjective · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Very old-fashioned and no longer commonly used.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    (A member of) an archaic variety of Homo sapiens.

Examples

  • The written form looks like an archaic form of English.

  • … Archaic Stage … the stage of migratory hunting and gathering cultures continuing into environmental conditions approximately those of the present.

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
3

Also pronounced

  • /ɐːˈkæɪ.ɪk/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

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

  2. No longer in ordinary use, though still used occasionally to give a sense of antiquity and still likely to be understood by well-educated speakers and are found in historical texts.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. The prehistoric period intermediate between the earliest period (‘Paleo-Indian’, ‘Paleo-American’, ‘American‐paleolithic’, etc.) of human presence in the Western Hemisphere, and the most recent prehistoric period (‘Woodland’, etc.).

More examples

In context

  • This expression is archaic.

  • [...] 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.

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

Synonyms

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Nearby

Origin

adjective

From archaism (“ancient or obsolete phrase or expression”) or from French archaïque, ultimately from Ancient Greek ἀρχαϊκός (arkhaïkós, “old-fashioned”), from ἀρχαῖος (arkhaîos, “from the beginning, antiquated, ancient, old”), from ἀρχή (arkhḗ, “beginning, origin”), from ἄρχω (árkhō, “to be first”), from ἄρχω (árkhō, “to begin”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ergʰ- (“to begin, rule, command”).