antique

comparative antiquer · superlative antiquest · alternative obsolete antic · alternative obsolete antick · alternative obsolete anticke · alternative abbreviation antiq.

1. Having existed in ancient times, descended from antiquity; used especially in reference to Greece and Rome.

   I met a traveller from an antique land

   1817 (published 11 January 1818), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Sonnet. Ozymandias.”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume III, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 67

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   […] Phillip the younger issue of the king, / Coting the other hill in such arraie, / That all his guilded vpright pikes do seeme, / Streight trees of gold, the pendant leaues, / And their deuice of Antique heraldry, / Quartred in collours seeming sundy fruits, / Makes it the Orchard of the Hesperides, […]

   1596, The Raigne of King Edvvard the third: […], London: Cuthbert Burby, unnumbered page

   Not that great Champion of the antique world, / Whom famous Poets verse so much doth daunt, / And hath for twelue huge labours high extold, / So many furies and sharp fits did haunt, / […]

   1609, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene, Disposed Into XII. Bookes, Fashioning twelue Morall Vertues, London: Mathew Lownes, book 1, canto 11, verse 27, page 51

   From the rest they stand out contrastingly, as the Apollo of the later Greek sculpture-school,—too graceful for divinity and too vivacious for marble,—placed in a company of the antiquer statues with their grand blind look of the almightiness of repose.

   1842, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Essays on the Greek Christian Poets and the English Poets, New York: James Miller, published 1863, page 179

   Believe an impartial Howadji who has no Cangie or other boats to let at Mahratta, that Nubia is a very different land from Egypt, and that you have not penetrated antiquest Egypt, until you have been awe-stricken by the silence which was buried ages ago in Aboo Simbel, and by the hand-folded Osiride figures, that people, like dumb and dead Gods, that dim, demonic hall.

   1851, George William Curtis, Nile Notes of a Howadji, New York: Harper & Brothers, page 159

2. Belonging to former times, not modern, out of date, old-fashioned.

   Some traditions of this antiquer system may have passed into Van Eyck's method, from distemper into oil, and thence downwards, gradually more vague, into the modern process, till they at length disappeared altogether about Rubens's time.

   1841 July 3, “Fine Arts”, in The Athenæum: Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, number 714, London, page 509, column 3

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   A lonesome traveler might have been seen, / On the turnpike road near the village green, / In a grotesque suit of ultra-marine / And a hat broad-brimmed and conical, / Awkwardly perched in a family cart— / The very antiquest kind / Of an umbrella arching o'er him, / A long black trunk behind / And a short white pony before him, / That ambles on with a jerk and a start, / As though it were taking an active part / In a piece of German machinery.

   1865, H. T. Sperry, Country Love vs. City Flirtation; or, Ten Chapters From the Story of a Life, New York: Carleton, page 10

   “There the cause of death was soon ascertained ; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom.[…]”

   1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020

   Lastly, I must mention the "Underground," to travel on which was, in those days, an experience to be remembered. There were the antique looking engines, and the rather grim carriages, with the fascinating indicators in the compartments to show (not always correctly!) the next station, and above all, there was the atmosphere.

   1957 July 28, M. D. Greville, “A Diamond Jubilee of Railway Memories”, in Railway Magazine, page 459

   Synonyms: antiquated

3. mediaDesignating a style of type.
4. artsEmbossed without gilt.
5. Synonym of old (“of color: subdued, as if faded over time”).

   Synonyms: old

6. obsoleteSynonym of antic, specifically

   Synonyms: antic, specifically

7. Synonym of antic, specifically:
   1. obsoleteFantastic, odd, wild, antic.

plural antiques · alternative obsolete antic · alternative obsolete antick · alternative obsolete anticke · alternative abbreviation antiq.

1. In general, anything very old; specifically:
   1. An old object perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance.
   2. An object of ancient times.
   3. singularThe style or manner of ancient times, used especially of Greek and Roman art.
   4. derogatoryfigurativelymildlyAn old person.

      Synonyms: coffin dodger

   5. obsoleteA man of ancient times.

      They supposed that they had seene those most beutyfull Dryades, or the natyue nymphes or fayres of the fountaynes whereof the antiques spake so muche.

      1577, Richarde Eden, Richarde Willes, The History of Trauayle in the VVest and East Indies, and other countreys lying eyther way, towardes the fruitfull and ryche Moluccaes: […], London: Richarde Iugge, folio 31

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      Wee eas'ly limme, some louely-Virgin face, / And can to life, a Lantscip represent, / Afford to Antiques, each his proper grace, / Or trick out this, or that compartement : / […]

      [1612], Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna or a Garden of Heroical Deuises, furnished, and adorned with Emblemes and Impres'as of sundry natures, London, page 114

      Synonyms: ancient

2. mediaA style of type of thick and bold face in which all lines are of equal or nearly equal thickness.
3. Synonym of antic, specifically:
   1. obsoleteGrotesque entertainment; an antic.

      […] I do implore secretie, that the King would haue me present the Princesse (sweete chuck) with some delightfull ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antique, or fierworke : […]

      c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]

   2. obsoleteA performer in an antic; or in general, a burlesque performer, a buffoon.

present singular third person antiques · participle present antiquing · participle past antiqued · past antiqued · alternative obsolete antic · alternative obsolete antick · alternative obsolete anticke · alternative abbreviation antiq.

1. intransitiveTo search or shop for antiques.

   Once our daughter-in-love, Janis, went antiquing with us because she and our firstborn, Matthew, were in the market for some bedroom furniture.

   1999, Ron McAdoo, Caryl McAdoo, Antiquing in North Texas, page 103

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   Another way to get your wish granted is to find a lamp with a genie in it. And I don't know if genies only exist in fairy tales, but I've been going antiquing with my mom on weekends in case they're actually real.

   2025, Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Partypooper, page 21

2. transitiveTo make (an object) appear to be an antique in some way.
3. transitiveartsTo emboss without gilding.

1. A province of Western Visayas, Visayas, Philippines. Capital: San Jose de Buenavista.