historic

Pluralhistorics

1. 1
   adjective

   Having major importance or significance in history; likely to be remembered.

   The signing of the peace treaty was a historic moment for both nations.

   Voters took part in a historic election that shattered turnout records.

   Similarmomentous, significant, pivotal, memorable, epoch-making

   Oppositeinsignificant, unimportant, trivial, forgettable

   Note

   Here the word is a verdict, not a date. A historic event is one that matters, while a historical one simply belongs to the past. The two can share a sentence: historical research into a historic day, or the historical works of Macaulay and Gibbon, themselves historic. Careful usage keeps them apart, which is why the plain 'of the past' meaning now sounds uncommon.

2. 2
   adjective

   Old-fashioned and untouched by modern life, preserving the look and feel of an earlier time.

   The town's historic quarter keeps its old gas lamps and cobblestone lanes, free of modern storefronts.

   They bought a historic farmhouse and left every original beam untouched by renovation.

   Similarold, traditional, old-world, period, quaint

   Oppositemodern, contemporary, new

   Note

   This sense is about atmosphere rather than events: a place is historic when it still looks like its past, whether or not anything momentous happened there. Because it measures how much of that past survives, it takes degrees easily. Horace Walpole, writing in 1756, judged York the more historic of two counties thick with sights.

3. 3
   adjectiverare

   Concerning, or in accordance with, recorded history or the past in general; used as a synonym of historical.

   The novel blends historic fact with imaginative storytelling.

   An high-pac'd Muse treading a lofty march, leades honor enchaind in an Epique pen, grac'd with the furtherance of historique Clio.

   1594, John Dickenson, Arisbas

   Similarhistorical

   Note

   An older job the word has mostly handed to historical. John Dickenson in 1594 writes of "historique Clio", the muse of history, in a spelling that sits close to its French cognate historique. Today historic records or historic fact can be misread as the "momentous" meaning, so historical is the safer choice when you mean only "of the past."

4. 4
   adjective

   In grammar, describing a tense or mood used specifically for narrating past events, such as the historic present.

   The narrator slips into the historic present to make the battle feel immediate.

   Latin grammar describes a historic infinitive used in vivid past narration.

   Similarhistorical

   Note

   A grammarian's label that groups tenses by their job rather than their form. The historic tenses are the ones used for narrating the past: the imperfect, the pluperfect, even the future perfect. The same label names the historic present, where present-tense verbs retell past action for vividness. It also names historic sequence, the tense agreement required in clauses under a past-tense main verb.

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