antic

Adjective

antic (comparative more antic, superlative most antic)

1. Playful, funny, absurd.
   • 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     My men like Satyres grazing on the lawnes,
     Shall with their Goate feete daunce an antick hay,

   • 2010 July 26, Michiko Kakutani, “Love Found Amid Ruins of Empire”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     In recounting the story of Lenny and Eunice in his antic, supercaffeinated prose, Mr. Shteyngart gives us his most powerful and heartfelt novel yet — a novel that performs the delightful feat of mashing up an apocalyptic satire with a genuine supersad true love story.

2. (architecture, art) Grotesque, incongruous.
   • 2004, John Chase, Glitter Stucco and Dumpster Diving: Reflections on Building Production in the Vernacular city, page 58:

     The amusement park environment of seaside resorts such as Venice and the antic eclecticism of Greene & Greene's pre-Craftsman work all preceded the establishment of the movie colony in Hollywood.

3. (archaic) Grotesque, bizarre
   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v], page 58:

     Fetch me my Rapier Boy, what dares the ſlaue / Come hither, couer'd with an antique face, / To fleere and ſcorne at our Solemnitie?

   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Leaves Lagado, Arrives at Maldonada. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 97:

     […] we all three enter'd the Gate of the Palace between two Rows of Guards, armed and dreſſed after a very antick manner, and ſomething in their Countenances that made my Fleſh creep with a Horror I cannot expreſs.

   • 1865, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Stage-coach Views”, in [Sophia Thoreau; William Ellery Channing], editors, Cape Cod, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 25:

     […] a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces, with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.

4. Obsolete form of antique.

Noun

antic (plural antics)

1. (architecture, art, obsolete) A grotesque representation of a figure; a gargoyle.
2. A caricature.
3. (often in the plural) A ludicrous gesture or act; ridiculous behaviour; caper.

   I'm fed up with your constant antics in class. Please behave yourself!

   • c. 1806–1809 (date written), William Wordsworth, “Book the Sixth. The Church-yard among the Mountains.”, in The Excursion, being a Portion of The Recluse, a Poem, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], published 1814, →OCLC, page 263:

     Two sets of manners, could the youth put on; / And, fraught with antics as the Indian bird / That writhes and chatters in her wiry cage, / Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still / As the mute Swan that floats adown the stream, […]

   • 1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC:

     The woman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and indulge in playful antics.

   • 1907, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “On Goat Island”, in The War in the Air: […], London: George Bell and Sons, published 1908, →OCLC, § 7, pages 299–300:

     I've 'ad about enough of you and your antics. I been thinking you over, you and your war and your Empire and all the rot of it.

   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     Toad ceased his frivolous antics at once. He became grave and depressed, and a dull pain in the lower part of his spine, communicating itself to his legs, made him want to sit down and try desperately not to think of all the possibilities.

   • 1916, Vance Barnum, Joe Strong on the Trapeze‎:

     She put Rosebud through his paces in the ring, and received her share of applause at the antics of the clever horse.

   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter II, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

     Of their elders some, by imitating the antics of youth, strive to persuade themselves that their day is not yet over; they shout with the lustiest, but the war cry sounds hollow in their mouth; […]

   • 1953, John Christopher, Blemish:

     I saw the barren horror of your people's leisure with the million entertained by the antics of a tiny few […]

   • 2007, Jeph Jacques, Time To Add A Cute Kid To The Cast Questionable Content Number 951

     Pintsize: Wait, don’t you want to know why I’m tied up and hanging from the ceiling? / Faye: Not really. Nighty night! / Pintsize: Shit! My wacky antics have jumped the shark!

4. A grotesque performer or clown, buffoon.
   • 1978, Walter C. Foreman, The Music of the Close: The Final Scenes of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, page 90:

     The Grave-maker, like the professional fools and Falstaff, and like Hamlet himself, is an antic, a grotesque, one who demonstrates to men how foolish and

Verb

antic (third-person singular simple present antics, present participle anticking, simple past and past participle anticked)

1. (intransitive) To perform antics, to caper.
   • 1917 April, Jack London, chapter IV, in Jerry of the Islands, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, page 54:

     Jerry no more than cocked a contemptuous quizzical eye at the mainsail anticking above him. He knew already the empty windiness of its threats, but he was careful of the mainsheet blocks, and walked around the traveller instead of over it.

2. (obsolete) To make a fool of, to cause to look ridiculous.
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]:

     Gentle lords, let's part; / You see we have burnt our cheeks: strong Enobarb / Is weaker than the wine; and mine own tongue / Splits what it speaks: the wild disguise hath almost / Antick'd us all.

   • 1964, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts:

     Whether one's surroundings were anticked up or not, one often felt one was living in another century at Roque.

   • 1982, The Picturesque Tour, page 25:

     Surtees became a friend of Walter Scott and played a very "anticking" joke upon the author.

3. (transitive, rare) To perform (an action) as an antic; to mimic ridiculously.
   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage, published 1993, page 70:

     She unfastened her dress, her arms arched thin and high, her shadow anticking her movements.

Derived terms

Noun

antic (plural antics)

1. (animation) A pose, often exaggerated, in anticipation of an action; for example, a brief squat before jumping

Derived terms

Related terms

• antiguitat

See also

• vell

Descendants

• English: antique (borrowing)
• French: antique

See also

• ancien
• viel

Descendants

• Occitan: antic

See also

• vielh

Declension

Declension

See also

• vechi
• demodat
• versat
• vetust