antique

adjective

1. 1

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

   […] 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, […]

   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, / […]

   I met a traveller from an antique land

   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.

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   Belonging to former times, not modern, out of date, old-fashioned.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

   “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.[…]”

   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.

3. 3

   Designating a style of type.

4. 4

   Embossed without gilt.

5. 5

   Synonym of old (“of color: subdued, as if faded over time”).

6. 6

   obsoleteSynonym of antic, specifically

7. 7

   obsoleteSynonym of antic, specifically: Fantastic, odd, wild, antic.

noun

1. 1

   In general, anything very old; specifically: An old object perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance.

2. 2

   In general, anything very old; specifically: An object of ancient times.

3. 3

   In general, anything very old; specifically: The style or manner of ancient times, used especially of Greek and Roman art.

4. 4

   figurativeIn general, anything very old; specifically: An old person.

5. 5

   obsoleteIn general, anything very old; specifically: A 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.

   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 : / […]

6. 6

   A style of type of thick and bold face in which all lines are of equal or nearly equal thickness.

7. 7

   obsoleteSynonym of antic, specifically: Grotesque 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 : […]

8. 8

   obsoleteSynonym of antic, specifically: A performer in an antic; or in general, a burlesque performer, a buffoon.

verb

1. 1

   To 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.

2. 2

   To make (an object) appear to be an antique in some way.

3. 3

   To emboss without gilding.

Forms

plural

antiques

comparative

antiquer

superlative

antiquest

past tense

antiqued

past participle

antiqued

present participle

antiquing

third person singular

antiques