Old English

English

Proper noun

Old English

  1. (linguistics, historical) The ancestor language of Modern English, also called Anglo-Saxon, spoken in most of Britain from about 400 to 1100.
  2. (nonstandard, technically incorrect) Archaic English (Early Modern English) or Middle English speech or writing, or an imitation of this: old English.
    • 2008, Stephen J. Harris, Bryon Lee Grigsby, Misconceptions About the Middle Ages, page 177:
      Those who claim that they've been reading Shakespeare in Old English betray their ignorance: they haven't.
  3. (typography, historical) The form of black letter used by 16th-century English printers.

Synonyms

Translations

See also

  • Wiktionary's coverage of Old English terms
  • Germanic

Further reading

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.