nouns - Is there an old, rarely used word which means "an archaic word"?


I seem to recall from my youth, when my vocabulary was many times what it is today, learning a word (started with an 'a' I think) whose meaning was "an old, unused, or archaic word" or something roughly to that effect. I believe it was an adjective though it might have been a noun. This would be quite fun as an autological term. Does anyone recall such a word, or am I deceiving myself?



Answer



There are these two ‘a’ words which have a suitable meaning but which are not themselves strictly self-descriptive:




  • archaism, noun : An archaic word or expression.




  • anachronism, noun : Anything done or existing out of date; hence, anything which was proper to a former age, but is, or, if it existed, would be, out of harmony with the present




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