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The oldest English sense of "relict" is extinct-or at least obsolete. In the 16th century, relict meant "an object esteemed and venerated because of association with a saint or martyr," but that meaning is now covered by "relic," a related word that can also refer to something left behind after decay or disappearance. "Relict" was also used to refer to a widow at one time, but now that sense is more or less limited to legal uses. It seems fitting that "relict" has outdated senses; after all, it derives ultimately from the Latin verb relinquere, meaning "to leave behind."
Examples of relict in a Sentence
Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 22 July 2024
Last year, the team found a relict glacier in the geologically young region, a hopeful sign for future human habitation on a cold, arid, generally inhospitable world.
—Isaac Schultz / Gizmodo, Quartz, 18 Mar. 2024
Just three relict groups of hunter-gatherers--the Semang Negritos of the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman Islanders, and the Veddoid Negritos of Sri Lanka--remain to give us any clue as to what those peoples were like.
—Jared Diamond, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
Unable to cross the straits these relict groups eventually went extinct.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 11 Mar. 2011
The implication is that D is a relict of a large set of populations which have slowly been absorbed by expansions of other groups.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 16 Dec. 2010
What was once believed to be the largest asteroid has now been revealed as a relict protoplanet that once had a since-frozen over ocean.
—John Wenz, Discover Magazine, 3 July 2018
The plant is a relict, an ancient hanger-on from a time just after the death of the dinosaurs, when the Pyrenees enjoyed a tropical climate.
—Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 12 Sep. 2012
The site is located in close proximity to a substantial relict lake and indicates that Middle Paleolithic hominins penetrated deeply into the Arabian Peninsula to inhabit landscapes vegetated by grasses and some trees.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 16 May 2011
Dictionary Entries Near relict
Cite this Entry
“Relict.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relict. Accessed 25 Nov. 2024.
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