# archaic

Pronunciation: US say "ahr-KAY-ik" /ɑɹˈkeɪ.ɪk/; UK say "ah-KAY-ik" /ɑːˈkeɪ.ɪk/

## Adjective

1. Belonging to or typical of a long-past age, or so old-fashioned as to seem quaint or out of date.
   - Simple: Very old, from a time long ago, or so old-fashioned that it seems out of date.
   - _The county still enforces an archaic law that bans selling cars on Sundays._
   - _To many younger voters, the monarchy looks like an archaic institution kept alive by ceremony._
2. Of words: no longer in ordinary use, but still used now and then to give a sense of antiquity, likely to be understood by well-educated speakers, and found in historical texts.
   - Simple: Describes a word no longer in everyday use but still understood, found in old books, and sometimes used to sound old.
   - _The novelist gave her knights archaic speech, full of thee and thou, to make the tale feel medieval._
   - _Readers today often need footnotes to get through the archaic language of older translations._
3. Belonging to, or dating from, the period that archaeologists call the archaic period.
   - Simple: From or belonging to the time that archaeologists call the archaic period.
   - _Beneath the village floor, the team uncovered an archaic campsite with hearths and stone spear points but no pottery._
   - _The museum's Greek gallery opens with archaic statues, carved generations before the classical masterpieces next door._

## Noun

4. In the Western Hemisphere, the prehistoric period following the earliest era of human presence, such as the Paleo-Indian, and preceding later prehistoric periods, such as the Woodland. *(US)*
   - Simple: In the Americas, the time long ago after the first people arrived and before later times such as the Woodland.
   - _Hunting camps from the Archaic dot the river valleys of the Midwest._
   - _The site's lowest layers date to the Archaic, when small bands moved with the seasons to hunt and gather._
5. One of the archaic varieties of Homo sapiens, or an individual belonging to one.
   - Simple: An early type of human from long ago, or one person of that type.
   - _With its heavy brow ridge and low, sloping forehead, the fossil skull clearly belonged to an archaic._
   - _Some researchers argue that the archaics of East Asia interbred with modern humans moving into the region._

## Origin

The word comes from archaism ("ancient or obsolete expression"), or else from French archaïque. The chain leads back to Ancient Greek arkhaïkós ("old-fashioned"), built on arkhaîos ("from the beginning, ancient, old"). That word comes from arkhḗ ("beginning, origin"), which in turn comes from árkhō ("I begin, I am first"). The root may be *h₂ergʰ-, Proto-Indo-European for "to begin, rule, command."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/archaic (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).