- 1belonging to a period of history that is thousands of years in the past ancient civilization ancient Greece opposite modern
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- 2very old; having existed for a very long time an ancient oak tree ancient monuments (humorous) He's ancient—he must be at least fifty!
- 3the ancients noun [plural] the people who lived in ancient times, especially the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans
The area where the market was anciently held (= in ancient times).See ancient in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
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