Relic

How to spell relic

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce relic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does relic mean?

1. nounAn object or custom that survives from an earlier time, valued as a reminder of the past.

Relic in a sentence

• The museum displayed a rusted relic from the old steelworks.

• That fax machine in the corner is a relic of the office's early days.

Where does relic come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Relic descends from the Latin reliquiae, a plural noun meaning 'remains' or 'things left behind', which was built on the verb relinquere, 'to leave behind'. That verb combined re-, here carrying a sense of 'behind', with linquere, 'to leave', the same root that survives in 'relinquish'. In medieval Christianity the word took on a special religious sense, referring to the physical remains of a saint or to objects associated with one, treasured and displayed in churches. English borrowed it through Old French relique around the 1200s, at first almost entirely in that sacred sense. Over the centuries the meaning broadened to cover any object that survives from an earlier age, and the original Latin spelling with a single c is why the word ends plainly in -lic rather than -lick.

How the word is built

• re- (back, behind)
• -lic (from Latin linquere: to leave) = something left behind