ANCIENTS

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(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does ancients mean? 

• ANCIENTS (noun)
  The noun ANCIENTS has 1 sense:

1. people who lived in times long past (especially during the historical period before the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe)

  Familiarity information: ANCIENTS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANCIENTS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

People who lived in times long past (especially during the historical period before the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("ancients" is a kind of...):

people ((plural) any group of human beings (men or women or children) collectively)

Domain region:

Roman Empire (an empire established by Augustus in 27 BC and divided in AD 395 into the Western Roman Empire and the eastern or Byzantine Empire; at its peak lands in Europe and Africa and Asia were ruled by ancient Rome)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

 Context examples 

Mars loves to be in Capricorn—the ancients wrote that Mars is exalted here and thereby expresses his greatest powers of energy and optimism in this sign.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

The ancients, the fathers of the Church, the moderns, the Scriptures, the Arabians, were each sent hurtling against the other, while the rain still dripped and the dark holly-leaves glistened with the moisture.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Then he seemed quite inspired, though the burial customs of the ancients, to which the conversation had strayed, might not be considered an exhilarating topic.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

High silken pavilions or colored marquees, shooting up from among the crowd of meaner dwellings, marked where the great lords and barons of Leon and Castile displayed their standards, while over the white roofs, as far as eye could reach, the waving of ancients, pavons, pensils, and banderoles, with flash of gold and glow of colors, proclaimed that all the chivalry of Iberia were mustered in the plain beneath them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When all was ready, Van Helsing said:—Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

A warning look from her mother checked any further remarks, and the whole family ate in heroic silence, till Mr. March mildly observed, salad was one of the favorite dishes of the ancients, and Evelyn...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)