ANTIQUITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does antiquity mean? 

• ANTIQUITY (noun)
  The noun ANTIQUITY has 3 senses:

1. the historic period preceding the Middle Ages in Europe

2. extreme oldness

3. an artifact surviving from the past

  Familiarity information: ANTIQUITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANTIQUITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The historic period preceding the Middle Ages in Europe

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

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

age; historic period (an era of history having some distinctive feature)

Domain member category:

Chinese deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Chinese)

Roman; Romanic (of or relating to or derived from Rome (especially ancient Rome))

Greek deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Greeks)

Roman deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Romans)

Bacchus ((classical mythology) god of wine; equivalent of Dionysus)

Norse deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Norsemen)

Phrygian deity (deity of the ancient Phrygians of west central Asia Minor)

augur; auspex ((ancient Rome) a religious official who interpreted omens to guide public policy)

centurion ((ancient Rome) the leader of 100 soldiers)

choragus ((ancient Greece) leader of a group or festival; leader of a chorus)

gladiator ((ancient Rome) a professional combatant or a captive who entertained the public by engaging in mortal combat)

pontifex (a member of the highest council of priests in ancient Rome)

procurator ((ancient Rome) someone employed by the Roman Emperor to manage finance and taxes)

sibyl ((ancient Rome) a woman who was regarded as an oracle or prophet)

tribune ((ancient Rome) an official elected by the plebeians to protect their interests)

dithyramb ((ancient Greece) a passionate hymn (usually in honor of Dionysus))

lustrum (a ceremonial purification of the Roman population every five years following the census)

catacomb (an underground tunnel with recesses where bodies were buried (as in ancient Rome))

circus ((antiquity) an open-air stadium for chariot races and gladiatorial games)

galley ((classical antiquity) a crescent-shaped seagoing vessel propelled by oars)

bay wreath; laurel; laurel wreath ((antiquity) a wreath of laurel foliage worn on the head as an emblem of victory)

pantheon ((antiquity) a temple to all the gods)

toga virilis ((ancient Rome) a toga worn by a youth as a symbol of manhood and citizenship)

humor; humour ((Middle Ages) one of the four fluids in the body whose balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical state)

Persian deity (a deity worshiped by the ancient Persians)

paean; pean ((ancient Greece) a hymn of praise (especially one sung in ancient Greece to invoke or thank a deity))

torch race ((ancient Greece) in which a torch is passed from one runner to the next)

Ana (mother of the ancient Irish gods; sometimes identified with Danu)

Lug; Lugh (ancient Celtic god)

Egyptian deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Egyptians)

Ra; Re (ancient Egyptian sun god with the head of a hawk; a universal creator; he merged with the god Amen as Amen-Ra to become the king of the gods)

Semitic deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Semites)

Holonyms ("antiquity" is a part of...):

history (the aggregate of past events)

Derivation:

antique (belonging to or lasting from times long ago)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Extreme oldness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

ancientness; antiquity

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

oldness (the quality of being old; the opposite of newness)

Derivation:

antique (belonging to or lasting from times long ago)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An artifact surviving from the past

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

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

artefact; artifact (a man-made object taken as a whole)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "antiquity"):

antique (any piece of furniture or decorative object or the like produced in a former period and valuable because of its beauty or rarity)

relic (an antiquity that has survived from the distant past)

Roman building (a building constructed by the ancient Romans)

stela; stele (an ancient upright stone slab bearing markings)

Derivation:

antique (made in or typical of earlier times and valued for its age)

 Context examples 

The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anany said the tomb is not in good condition, but it contains a statue of the goldsmith and his wife as well as a funerary mask.

(Egypt Announces Discovery of 3,500-Year-Old Luxor Tomb, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

‘It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,’ he answered. ‘But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it.’

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It would be tedious to trouble the reader with relating what vast numbers of illustrious persons were called up to gratify that insatiable desire I had to see the world in every period of antiquity placed before me.

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

Indeed, early as it was when Dame Eliza began to stir, it seemed that others could be earlier still, for the door was ajar, and the learned student of Cambridge had taken himself off, with a mind which was too intent upon the high things of antiquity to stoop to consider the four-pence which he owed for bed and board.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard, did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Her anxiety had foundation in fact, her fears in probability; and with a mind so occupied in the contemplation of actual and natural evil, the solitude of her situation, the darkness of her chamber, the antiquity of the building, were felt and considered without the smallest emotion; and though the wind was high, and often produced strange and sudden noises throughout the house, she heard it all as she lay awake, hour after hour, without curiosity or terror.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Sometimes, I remember, I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I couldn't satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him in such a remote antiquity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)