relic

American  

[rel-ik] / ˈrɛl ɪk /

noun

1. a surviving memorial of something past.

2. an object having interest by reason of its age or its association with the past.

   a museum of historic relics.

3. a surviving trace of something.

   a custom that is a relic of paganism.

4. relics,

   1. remaining parts or fragments.

   2. the remains of a deceased person.

5. something kept in remembrance; souvenir; memento.

6. Ecclesiastical. (especially in the Roman Catholic and Greek churches) the body, a part of the body, or some personal memorial of a saint, martyr, or other sacred person, preserved as worthy of veneration.

7. a once widespread linguistic form that survives in a limited area but is otherwise obsolete.

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relic British  

/ ˈrɛlɪk /

noun

1. something that has survived from the past, such as an object or custom

2. something kept as a remembrance or treasured for its past associations; keepsake

3. (usually plural) a remaining part or fragment

4. RC Church Eastern Churches part of the body of a saint or something supposedly used by or associated with a saint, venerated as holy

5. informal an old or old-fashioned person or thing

6. archaic (plural) the remains of a dead person; corpse

7. ecology a less common term for relict

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Other Word Forms

• reliclike
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of relic

1175–1225; Middle English < Old French relique < Latin reliquiae (plural) remains (> Old English reliquias ), equivalent to reliqu ( us ) remaining + -iae plural noun suffix

Explanation

A relic is a fragment from the past — one of Elvis's guitars, an ancient piece of pottery or even an outmoded way of thinking -– that remains behind. Your dad might love his old albums, but to you, they're just relics. The noun relic is derived from relinquere, Latin for "to leave behind." A crumbling Roman wall is a relic of a once-great civilization. The superstition that seven years of bad luck will follow if you break a mirror may be a relic of the old superstition that a mirror can trap the souls of those reflected in it. Whether it's an object or an idea, a relic is a remnant of the past. Religious relics are items, such as Buddha’s tooth or St. Anne’s wrist bone, that have been preserved and venerated.

Example Sentences

But the gains in that barbarous relic, gold, have surpassed the AI-powered stock bull run.

From Barron's • May 15, 2026

Whether the tweet was a confession or a clerical error, travel experts say the advice on how to avoid surprise price jumps is a relic of a simpler internet.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 20, 2026

It feels like a relic from a bygone age of simplicity: an entire season of reality TV hinging on the social lives of a group of unpolished teenagers.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026

Americans often treat their nation’s founding text as a relic best observed through thick glass at the National Archives.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

One notion is that perhaps the singularity was the relic of an earlier, collapsed universe–that we’re just one of an eternal cycle of expanding and collapsing universes, like the bladder on an oxygen machine.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Related Words

• antique
• antiquity
• artifact
• curio
• evidence
• fragment
• keepsake
• memento
• monument
• remains
• remnant
• souvenir