from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a much earlier, often more primitive period, especially one that develops into a classical stage of civilization: an archaic bronze statuette; Archaic Greece.
- adj. No longer current or applicable; antiquated: archaic laws. See Synonyms at old.
- adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of words and language that were once in regular use but are now relatively rare and suggestive of an earlier style or period.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. 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.).
- n. (A member of) an archaic variety of Homo sapiens.
- adj. Of or characterized by antiquity; old-fashioned, quaint, antiquated.
- adj. No longer in ordinary use, though still used occasionally to give a sense of antiquity.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Of or characterized by antiquity or archaism; antiquated; obsolescent.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Marked by the characteristics of an earlier period; characterized by archaism; primitive; old-fashioned; antiquated: as, an archaic word or phrase.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
- adj. so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period
The forms of thou are termed archaic by Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged: "In this dictionary, the label archaic is affixed to words and senses relatively common in earlier times but infrequently used in present-day English."
LAVANDERA: Stay-at-home mother Melissa Pierce is leading the charge to end what she calls archaic alcohol laws.
With widespread illegal gambling activity, a group of Bahamians want what they call the archaic, undemocratic gaming laws in the country to be changed to afford them the right to gamble in their own country.
He looks up to see a man in archaic clothing stumbling down a hill, clearly being chased by vague, dark figures.
Those who oppose zoning will call it archaic, divisive, and unfair.
It doesn't stop you from using solid rocket motors or engines designed in archaic units.
One thing I was reminded of this weekend is that historic quotes in archaic language that Quakers use ... sometimes overuse .. were once contemporary language.
For those who are Gebserians, Rationalism is the deficient mode of Perspectival Thought Structures (preceded by efficient and defficient Mythic, Magical and the Origin [archaic] - so, an up and down side to each thought structure, of which Gebser explains 4 including the integral - the next stage in thought structures).
One can start to see the attraction of Catholicism, bestowing a miraculous poetry on technological advance, while anchoring the dizzying speed and confusion of the modern world in archaic ceremony.
Our public schools have fallen behind and our ability and willingness to innovate has been shoved aside by moneyed interests entrenched in archaic industries.