a. [ad. Gr. ἀρχαἴκός, old-fashioned, f. ἀρχαῖος ancient: see -IC. Cf. F. archaïque.] Marked by the characteristics of an earlier period; old-fashioned, primitive, antiquated.
1835. Standard, 8 July, 3/4.
| Or shall it anchor in the crystal bay | |
| Of that belov’d Hesperian Isle, | |
| Where bards Archaic chant a living lay…? |
1846. Ellis, Elgin Marb., I. 111. A later specimen of the archaic period of bas-relief.
1875. Lubbock, Orig. Civiliz., i. 2. A social condition ruder and more archaic than any which history records.
1879. Gladstone, Gleanings, II. vii. 345. A population … of archaic covenanting puritans.
b. esp. of language: Belonging to an earlier period, no longer in common use, though still retained either by individuals, or generally, for special purposes, poetical, liturgical, etc. Thus the pronunciation obleege is archaic in the first case; the pronoun thou in the second.
1832. (title) Boucher’s Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words.
1876. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond., 286. An archaic form of diction.
