Other forms: antiquities
Antiquity is the distant past of the classical world. Classical antiquity, in antiquity, a relic of antiquity.
It means Greece and Rome and their neighbours, roughly to the fall of the western empire, and it is the period the European curriculum was built around for centuries. The plural means ancient objects. Of an object, great antiquity simply means great age. Note antique; and that the Latin means former.
1nounantiquityThe distant past of the classical world.
“The statue dates from antiquity and was found in the ruins of a Roman villa.”
2noungreatGreat age.
“Visitors marvel at the antiquity of the olive trees, some older than the village itself.”
antiquity is a period, or great age.
Latin antiquitas comes from antiquus, ancient or former, from ante, before. Antique and antic come from the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂en-
Latin
antiquitas
Old French
antiquité
Middle English
antiquyte
English, today
antiquity
From Middle English antiquyte, antiquite, antiquytee, a borrowing from Old French antiquité, antiquitet, from Latin antiquitas, from antiquus. Equivalent to antique + -ity. See antique, antic. Compare with French antiquité.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA