archaic
adjective
1. so extremely old as seeming to belong to an earlier period
- archaic laws
Similar word(s): old, antediluvian, antiquated
2. little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
- archaic forms of life
noun
1. (archaeology, US, usually capitalized) A general term for the prehistoric period intermediate between the earliest period (‘Paleo-Indian’, ‘Paleo-American’, ‘American‐paleolithic’, &c.) of human presence in the Western Hemisphere, and the most recent prehistoric period (‘Woodland’, etc.).
2. (paleoanthropology) (A member of) an archaic variety of Homo sapiens.