antiquity
/ænˈtɪk.wə.ti/ noun C1- Ancient times; faraway history; former ages. · Cicero was an eloquent orator of antiquity.
- The people of ancient times.
- The historical period preceding the Middle Ages (c. 500-1500), primarily relating to European history.
- A relic or monument of ancient times, such as a coin, a statue, etc.; an ancient institution.
- The state of being ancient or of ancient lineage.
Plural antiquities
From the library
‘But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it.
“Or of wisdom, my dear baron—or of wisdom,” said Louis XVIII., laughing; “the greatest captains of antiquity amused themselves by casting pebbles into the ocean—see Plutarch’s life of Scipio Africanus.”
The patron of La Jeune Amélie proposed as a place of landing the Island of Monte Cristo, which being completely deserted, and having neither soldiers nor revenue officers, seemed to have been placed in the midst of the ocean since the time of the heathen Olympus by Mercury, the god of merchants and robbers, classes of mankind which we in modern times have separated if not made distinct, but which antiquity appears to have included in the same category.
You, conversely, have abandoned our luminous beaches to immerse yourself in a metropolis that is essentially a magnificent palimpsest of antiquity.
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