archaism
Americannoun
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something archaic, as a word or expression.
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the use of what is archaic, as in literature or art.
The archaism of the novelist's style provided a sense of the period.
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the survival or presence of something from the past.
The art of letter writing is becoming an archaism.
noun
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the adoption or imitation of something archaic, such as a word or an artistic or literary style
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an archaic word, expression, style, etc
Other Word Forms
- archaist noun
- archaistic adjective
Etymology
Origin of archaism
1635–45; earlier archaismus < Latin < Greek archaïsmós. See archaize, -ism
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Wagner boss Prigozhin, whose rift with the defence establishment has become more public in the past week, called Sobolev's comments "absurd" and "archaisms from the 1960s".
From Reuters
So why do we still read him, and why do so many people still flock to his plays, despite their archaisms lichened with footnotes and, to citizens of our ironic century, his easily parodied apostrophizing?
From Washington Post
For his part Mr. Hopkins has employed the conscious archaism of a folk art style to furnish the quotidian world of a culture mostly erased by the Civil War.
From New York Times
In fact, on reflection, the collection proved to be subdued and refined, both stately and traditional in its references to archaisms like tailcoats and brocades.
From New York Times
Mud and rats, sandbags and trenches, sniper fire and mortar attacks—all of these things that we’re accustomed to experiencing abstractly through a distancing veil of archaisms and antiquity are suddenly real before us.
From The New Yorker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
