ancient

UK/ˈeɪn.ʃənt/US/ˈeɪn.ʃənt/

adjectiveA2+2 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,403 of 15,258leans written

Ancient means from thousands of years ago. The pyramids, Greek temples, a road the Romans laid.

Historians use it precisely for the period before the Middle Ages, which is why Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome take capitals. Everyday speech uses it much more loosely and often as a joke, since calling a phone ancient means it is four years old. It also describes people affectionately or rudely depending on tone. The related noun antiquity names the same period, and the adjective for objects is antique.

Definitions of ancient

1adjectiveancientBelonging to the distant past, thousands of years ago.A2+~98%
“They found an ancient burial mound under the field.”
2adjectiveindeedVery old indeed.B1~2%
“He drove an ancient van held together with tape.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 16 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Where it comes from

Latin
ante — before
Vulgar Latin
*anteānus
Old French
ancien
Middle English
auncyen
English, today
ancient

From Middle English auncyen, from Old French ancien, from Vulgar Latin anteānus, composed of Latin ante (“before”) + -ānus. The non-etymological excrescent /t/ is by analogy with the common ending -ent.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Adjectives, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

ancient in the wild

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and polymath.
Aristotle
Sparta was a prominent ancient Greek polis in Laconia.
Sparta
By the end of the ancient period in AD 500, the world population is thought to have stood at 209 million.
Ancient history
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC.
Ancient Greek
All known ancient and classical lists of wonders differ from the Octo Mundi Miracula version.
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of ancient

1adjectiveancientBelonging to the distant past, thousands of years ago.A2+~98%

“They found an ancient burial mound under the field.”

2adjectiveindeedVery old indeed.B1~2%

“He drove an ancient van held together with tape.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 16 sentences found in the wild and placed 16 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.