1Very old or old-fashioned.

1. 1.1 (of a word or a style of language) no longer in everyday use but sometimes used to impart an old-fashioned flavour.
   a term with a rather archaic ring to it

   Example sentencesExamples

   • It's an archaic term that first appeared in 1812-and it's erroneously used to describe any lucky bounce, good or bad.
   • The wording was practically archaic and the message it conveyed was grimmer than it needed to be, in her opinion.
   • It is written in an archaic style and is full of references to antiquated Greek philosophy which students today can hardly comprehend.
   • It seeks to present ideas clearly and directly, and to avoid archaic terms, repetition, and verbosity.
   • He cringed at his own use of such an archaic word.
   • The book, narrated in the first person (and in an archaic style, although whether authentically or in imitation I don't recall), has a false ending which appears to bring the story to a close.
   • They may have translated the archaic terms into scientific-sounding language, but it's the same old vitalism, dressed up as quantum physics.
   • Elevation is lent to his language by archaic and poetic words and an admixture of neologisms, while his extensive use of metaphor more closely resembles poetic than prose usage.
   • In certain cases, though, an archaic word may be retained in order to maintain the poetic rhyme and not lose the overall effect and value of the hymn.
   • This is in reference to Gogan's tendency to use traditional verse forms and a plethora of archaic words in his poetry.
   • The poems come to us across a great chronological and cultural divide, and the reader is reminded of this fact by the occasional archaic word and by the unusual compounding, both of which impart a faintly disorienting tone.
   • The title, by the way, is not a misprint: ‘photogram’ is simply an archaic word for a photograph.
   • It is full of articles on the origins of words and phrases (from up to the moment new phrases to archaic words that are no longer used).
   • Everyone notices all the specialized, archaic and dialect words in these books - catharpings, syllabub, marthambles and the like.
   • Because they are short or perceived as popular, certain archaic words survive in newspaper usage: agog, foe, hustings, scribe, slay.
   • It seeks to present ideas clearly, concisely, and directly, and to avoid legalese, archaic terms, and repetition.
   • ‘So much was made in the press when the book was released, of the way it was written, of the notion that I mixed contemporary with archaic styles,’ he says.
   • The first two of these are from poems in the style of traditional song lyrics, and thus represent an archaic state of the language preserved in a local dialect.
   • He retained archaic word choices and used footnotes to explain the meanings of those words.
   • He may not use the archaic term, but we will get the idea anyway.
2. 1.2 Of an early period of art or culture, especially the 7th–6th centuries BC in Greece.
   the archaic temple at Corinth

   Example sentencesExamples

   • As an American student in Italy and Greece he fell sway to early Greek art, admiring the simple graphic forms of early black-figure vase painting and archaic Greek sculpture.
   • The Summer Palace at Beijing with its archaic temples, pavilions, huge mansions, lakes etc. make a superb picnic spot.
   • Many larger vessels were made in this later period in imitation of archaic shapes, originally associated with bronze.
   • The discovery of ‘a very archaic female [figurine] from rear of east shops’ is recorded for May 14.
   • The elegantly run-down synagogue evoked an archaic or abandoned temple from a nearly forgotten age.
   • The vigour and simplicity of the archaic Greek temple is partly a Romantic construct, as archaeologists now tell us that they were painted all sorts of garish colours.
   • Concerning the archaic period, Reed admits that he is engaging in ‘cautious guesswork’.
   • This city was settled by Phoenicians in the archaic period and it challenged the rising Roman Republic in three wars culminating in its own destruction in the second century B.C.E.
   • Pursuing a theme of archaic poetry, Xenophanes is the first to reflect systematically on the distinction between human opinion or guesswork and certain knowledge.
   • Sironi's peer in sculpture was Arturo Martini, who also used archaic forms to enliven the classical tradition in search of a non-rhetorical Fascist style.
   • Stephen Harrison has argued that although in archaic Greece the form was linked to religious and social contexts where it was sung, by the Roman period it came to be associated with a purely literary form.
   • Vamedoe, in analysing ‘Boy Leading a Horse’, says the work had a kind of rigidity that made one think of the early archaic Greek sculptures of youth or adolescence.
   • By discovering the archaic roots of Indian culture, he came to understand the deep structures of his own national folklore.
   • It looks back ultimately to the Works and Days of the archaic Greek poet Hesiod.
   • And then we got Greek naturalism coming along within 50 years, I mean, it was from the archaic period to the high classical period.
   • Arnold captured archaic folk songs of anonymous origin passed on orally through generations.
   • Most dramatic of all are the tall, enigmatically smiling kouros, which are archaic statues of godlike young men.
   • The imagery has an affinity with Cycladic sculpture, with the forms of the archaic kouros, with the masks of the Luba from Zaire, and many other forms of expression evolved by rustics as opposed to urbanites.
   • Schaps, however, underestimates the market orientation of Greek agriculture in the later archaic period.
   • He is often coupled with the archaic poet Hesiod who wrote the Theogony and Works and Days.