ARCHAISM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Archaism

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noun

Archaism n.

An ancient, antiquated, or old-fashioned, word, expression, or idiom; a word or form of speech no longer in common use.

Antiquity of style or use; obsoleteness. "A select vocabulary corresponding (in point of archaism and remoteness from ordinary use) to our Scriptural vocabulary."

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Etymology of 'Archaism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Archaism" Quotes from Famous Books

... another shop. When this, and a dress to match, are made up, Marianne as naturally goes to church to show them: and indulges in very shrewd if not particularly amiable remarks on her "even-Christians"—a delightful English archaism, which surely needs no apology for its revival. Coming out, she slips and sprains her ankle, whereupon, still naturally, appears the inevitable young man, a M. de Valville, who, after endless amicable wrangling, procures her a coach, but not without ...

— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... more than in the preceding, there is occasionally an affectation of archaism, which rather adds to than detracts from the poetic effect of his prose, and the number of lines in the prose translation that are really ten-syllable verses is quite remarkable. On one page (page 183 of the third edition, Lemerre) more than half ...

— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... content to accept the old traditions, he is the ruthless denouncer of abuses, and is thoroughly filled with the spirit which, four years after the second recension of his book, found expression in the Peasants Revolt of 1381. With all the archaism of his diction and metre, Langland, even more than Chaucer, reflects the modernity ...

— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... and xliv. are related, we have seen, to passages in Jock o' the Side and Archie o' Cafield, but ballads, like Homer, employ the same formulae to describe the same circumstances: a note of archaism, as in ...

— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

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