ancient

Etymology 1

From Middle English auncyen, borrowed from Old French ancien (“old”), from Vulgar Latin root *anteanus, from Latin ante (“before”). Compare antique.

adj

1. Having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age, very old.
   an ancient city
   an ancient forest
   [P]ut the Caſe that the Nobleman of the ancienter Family does not indeed diſgrace his Dignity, but adds nothing to it; having nothing extraordinary to recommend him or diſrecommend him: Whereas the other, by his perſonal Merit, has rais'd himſelf to an equal Dignity. Which of the two in this Suppoſition deſerves the greater Eſteem? 1749, Joakim Philander [pseudonym; Friedrich Christian Schoenau], “The Adventure of the Inn”, in Vitulus Aureus: The Golden Calf. Or, A Supplement to Apuleius’s Golden Ass.[…], London: Printed for T. Cooper,[…], →OCLC, page 119
2. Existent or occurring in time long past, usually in remote ages; belonging to or associated with antiquity; old, as opposed to modern.
   an ancient author
   an ancient empire
   Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia. This ceaseless industrial fueling caused the deforestation of an estimated fifty to seventy million acres of woodlands. 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion, →OL
   Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal. 2013 July–August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4
3. (history) Relating to antiquity as a primarily European historical period; the time before the Middle Ages.
4. (obsolete) Experienced; versed.
   approved by the consent of the moste ancient doctors of the Churche [part of the book title] 1550, Thomas Cranmer, A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ; with a Confutation of sundry Errors concerning the same, grounded and stablished upon God's Holy Word, and approved by the consent of the most ancient Doc. tors of the Church
5. (obsolete) Former; sometime.

noun

1. A person who is very old.
2. A person who lived in ancient times.
   What is ancient for us was in its own time a reworking of what was ancient for the ancients. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 210
3. (UK, law) One of the senior members of the Inns of Court or of Chancery.
4. (obsolete) A senior; an elder; a predecessor.

Etymology 2

Corruption of ensign.

noun

1. (heraldry, archaic) A flag, banner, standard or ensign.
2. (obsolete, rare) the bearer of a flag; ensign