Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who studies, collects, or deals in antiquities.
  • adjective Of or relating to antiquarians or to the study or collecting of antiquities.
  • adjective Dealing in or having to do with old or rare books.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to antiquaries or to antiquarianism; connected with the study of antiquities, particularly of such as are comparatively modern, and of such as have interest rather as curiosities than for their inherent or archæological importance: as, an antiquarian museum.
  • An epithet applied to a size of drawing-paper, 53 × 31 or 52 × 29 inches.
  • noun Same as antiquary, 1 and 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Pertaining to antiquaries, or to antiquity.
  • noun An antiquary.
  • noun A drawing paper of large size. See under Paper, n.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pertaining to antiquaries, or to antiquity; as, antiquarian literature.
  • noun A collector, student or expert of antiquities or antiques.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to persons who study or deal in antiques or antiquities
  • noun an expert or collector of antiquities
  • adjective of or relating to antiques or antiquities

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

antiquary +‎ -an

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word antiquarian.

Examples

  • Showman -- At Home! and A Slap at Slop! engaged primarily in antiquarian research for his projected

    Brief Chronology 1998

  • Today, there's a trend toward decorating with such exotic, "antiquarian" - looking objects.

    RutlandHerald.com 2009

  • The reverend father Dom Calmet, a great antiquarian, that is, a great compiler of what was said in former times and what is repeated at the present day, has confounded lues with leprosy.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • Also, Hone is engaged in long-term antiquarian research in British Library, probably begun as preparation for his announced (but never produced)

    Brief Chronology 1998

  • Saturnalia of Lipsius, who, as an antiquarian, is inclined to excuse the practice of antiquity, (tom.iii. p. 483 — 56 Cod.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206

  • Carlyle called the antiquarian or historical researcher "Dryasdust."

    History and Literature 1924

  • And classical reminiscences have, even with him, a dull musty tinge which recalls the antiquarian in his Cambridge college-rooms rather than the visitor to Florence and Rome.

    Proserpine and Midas Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 1824

  • This retrieval of information not instantly validated by presentist urgencies may seem to belong to what Nietzsche called "antiquarian" history: the indiscriminate preservation of everything just because it is old (73-74).

    Is Literary History the History of Everything? The Case for 'Antiquarian' History 2002

  • We cannot fetishize "antiquarian" history as a solution to our problems, but it is a restraint upon despair or chaos.

    Is Literary History the History of Everything? The Case for 'Antiquarian' History 2002

  • While the "antiquarian" methods that Simpson urges us to adopt invite us to experience reading as a "meditative" act in which our epistemological and ultimately our ontological relations to historical material are both tentative and multi-directional, he doesn't afford this kind of flexibility to presentist readers.

    Reading Queerly: A Presentist's Confession 2002

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.