ancient
Very old; from a long, long time ago.
- We visited an ancient castle whose walls were built a thousand years ago.
- The museum's ancient Egyptian mummy is more than three thousand years old.
Similar: old, aged
ancient or antique?
Antique is old and valued. Ancient is very, very old.
Both words mean old, so children tend to use whichever comes to mind first. They belong to different things.
Antique is for objects made by people, such as furniture, clocks, jewellery or toys, that have survived from the past and are now treasured or collected. Granny's antique writing desk is old, but its oldness is what makes it special and often valuable.
Ancient is for things from a very long time ago, often hundreds or thousands of years: ancient Egypt, an ancient stone circle, an ancient oak tree in the park. You would never call an oak tree antique, and you would not usually call a chest of drawers ancient unless you were joking.
Both words, side by side
antique
Very old and often valuable.
- The antique clock had been ticking in Granny's hallway for over a hundred years.
- At the car boot sale, Dad found an antique telescope made two hundred years ago.
Similar: old, aged, ancient
Why it costs marks
In cloze questions the noun decides the answer. Ancient fits civilisations, ruins and trees; antique fits objects people own and collect. Choosing between them is a quick way for a paper to check whether a child really knows each word.
Definitions and example sentences on this page are the ones a child sees inside Wordrealm, taken from our list of over 1,100 words. It is free to browse, with nothing to sign up for.
Sitting the 11+ in Kent, Medway or Buckinghamshire?
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test