▪ I. antic, a. and n.
(ˈæntɪk)
Forms: 6–7 antike, -cke, 7–8 -ick, (7 antique), 6– antic.
[app. ad. It. antico, but used as equivalent to It. grottesco, f. grotta, ‘a cauerne or hole vnder grounde’ (Florio), orig. applied to fantastic representations of human, animal, and floral forms, incongruously running into one another, found in exhuming some ancient remains (as the Baths of Titus) in Rome, whence extended to anything similarly incongruous or bizarre: see grotesque. Cf. Serlio Architettura (Venice 1551) iv. lf. 70 a: ‘seguitare le uestigie de gli antiqui Romani, li quali costumarono di far..diuerse bizarrie, che si dicono grottesche.’ Apparently, from this ascription of grotesque work to the ancients, it was in English at first called antike, anticke, the name grotesco, grotesque, not being adopted till a century later. Antic was thus not developed in Eng. from antique, but was a distinct use of the word from its first introduction. Yet in 17th c. it was occas. written antique, a spelling proper to the other word.]
A. adj.
1. Arch. and Decorative Art. Grotesque, in composition or shape; grouped or figured with fantastic incongruity; bizarre.
| 1548 Hall Chron. Hen. VIII an. 12 (R.) A fountayne of embowed woorke..ingrayled with anticke woorkes. 1589 Hawkins' 2nd Voy. in Arber Eng. Garner V. 126 To paint their bodies with curious knots or antike work, as every man, in his own fancy deviseth. 1598 Florio, Grottesca, a kind of rugged vnpolished painters worke, anticke work. 1603 ― Montaigne i. xxvii. (1632) 89 All void places..he filleth up with antike Boscage or Grotesko workes. 1623 Cockeram Anticke Worke, a worke in painting or caruing of diuers shapes of Beasts, Birds, Flowers, etc., vnperfectly mixt, and made one of another. 1624 Wotton Archit. 97 Whether Grotesca (as the Italians) or Antique worke (as wee call it) should be receiued. 1703 City & Country Build. 5 Antick, or Antique-work..a confused Composure of Figures of different Natures, and Sexes, etc. As of Men, Beasts, Birds, Flowers, Fishes, etc. And such like Fancies as are not in Rerum Natura... This Work which we call Antick, the Italians call Grotesca..and the French Grotesque. 1826 J. Elmes Dict. Fine Arts, Antick, Odd, ridiculously wild. |
2. Absurd from fantastic incongruity; grotesque, bizarre, uncouthly ludicrous: a. in gesture.
| 1590 Marlowe Edw. II, i. i. 167 My men, like satyrs,..Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay. 1602 Shakes. Ham. i. v. 172 How strange or odde so ere I beare myselfe..To put an Anticke disposition on. 1603 Drayton Her. Epist. xi. 13 A Satyres Anticke parts he play'd. 1645 Milton Colast. Wks. 1851, 365 No antic hobnaile at a Morris, but is more hansomly facetious. 1660 H. More Myst. Godl. iii. ix. 77 Their religious Rites and Ceremonies being uncouth and antick. 1719 De Foe Crusoe 183 He came running to me..making a many antic gestures. 1805 Wordsworth Prel. vii. (1850) 178 An antic pair Of monkeys on his back. 1878 G. Macdonald Phantastes x. 149 Performing the most antic homage. |
b. in shape.
| 1642 R. Carpenter Exper. iii. v. 53 To appeare in strange and antick shapes. 1788 New Lond. Mag. 17 Several antic figures in shapes of boys danced. 1861 Tannhäuser 20 The twilight troop'd with antic shapes. |
c. in dress or attire.
| 1642 Milton Apol. Smect. Wks. 1738 I. 125 It had no Rubric to be sung in an antic Cope upon the Stage of a High Altar. 1665 Glanvill Sceps. Sci. 96 Their antick deckings with feathers. 1727 Swift Gulliver iii. vii. 223 Two rows of guards..dressed after a very antic manner. 1776 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 155/2 An ass..with a fellow in an antick dress riding upon it. 1858 Hawthorne Fr. & It. Jrnls. I. 80 The papal guards, in the strangest antique and antic costume that was ever seen. |
† 3. Having the features grotesquely distorted like ‘antics’ in architecture; grinning. Obs.
| 1594 Drayton Idea 424 Making withall some filthy Antike Face. 1611 Cotgr., Gargouille, The mouth of a Spowt, representing a Serpent, or the Anticke face of some other ouglie creature. 1620 Quarles Jonah (1638) 41 Your mimick mouthes, your antick faces. a 1631 Donne Elegies (R.) Name not these living death-heds unto me, For these not ancient but antique be. a 1659 Cleveland Wks. (1687) 31 The Antick heads which plac'd without The Church, do gape and disembogue a Spout. 1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1729) III. i. 406 The little Tame-Owl..making divers antick faces. |
4. Comb., as † antic-faced (see 3).
| 1635 J. Taylor (Water P.) Parr in Harl. Misc. (Malh.) IV. 205 An antick-faced fellow, called Jack, or John the Fool. |
B. n.
† 1. Arch. and Decorative Art. An ornamental representation, purposely monstrous, caricatured, or incongruous, of objects of the animal or the vegetable kingdom, or of both combined. a. Fantastic tracery or sculpture. Obs.
| 1548 Hall Chron. Hen. VIII an. 18 (R.) Aboue the arches were made many sondri antikes and diuises. 1596 Spenser F.Q. ii. vii. 4 Woven with antickes and wyld ymagery. 1645 Evelyn Mem. (1857) I. 146 The walls and roof are painted, not with antiques and grotesques, like our Bodleian. 1653 Urquhart Rabelais i. viii, A faire Cornucopia or Horne of abundance, such as you see in Anticks. 1725 Bradley Fam. Dict., Grotesque or Grotesc, a work, the same with what is sometimes called Antick. 1830 R. Stuart Dict. Archit.: Antics, In architecture, Fancies having no foundation in nature, as sphinxes, centaurs, syrens, representations of different sorts of flowers growing on the same stem; grotesque ornaments of all kinds, as lions and pards with acanthus' tails, or any other tails but their own proper ones; human forms with similar ridiculous appendages. Ornaments, although strictly natural, in an unnatural situation; as, caryatidæ of all kinds..The villa Palagonia, in Sicily, is an antic, from entrance gate to chimney top. |
b. A caryatid, or (sculptured) human figure represented in an impossible position.
| c 1590 Marlowe Faustus (2nd vers.) 715 To make his monks..stand like apes, And point like antics at his triple crown. 1615 Bp. Hall Contempl. (1837) I. xviii. iii. 395 Like some antic statue, in a posture of impotent endeavour. 1638 Chillingworth Relig. Prot. i. vi. §54, 374 Those crouching Anticks which seeme in great buildings to labour under the weight they beare. 1640 Bp. Hall Chr. Moder. 20/1 Those antics of stone..carved out under the end of great beams in vast buildings, which seem..as if they were hard put to it with the weight. c 1656 Hales Gold. Rem. (1688) 167 Those that build houses make anticks that seem to hold up the beams. 1830 [See sense a]. |
c. A grotesquely figured representation of a face, such as are used in gargoyles.
| 1601 Holland Pliny (1634) II. 552 To set vp Gargils or Antiques at the top of a Gauill end, as a finiall to the crest tiles. 1683 Lond Gaz. mdccclix/8 Three Gold Seals, one with an Old Man's Head, another with a Woman's Head, and the other with an Antick. |
2. A grotesque or ludicrous gesture, posture, or trick; also fig. of behaviour. (Commonly in pl.)
| 1529 Foxe in Supplic. (1871) Introd. 9 In sothe it maketh me to laugh, to see y⊇ mery Antiques of M. More. 1572 Sir T. Smith in Ellis Orig. Lett. ii. 191 III. 20 Vaulting with notable supersaltes and through hoopes, and last of all the Antiques, of carrying of men one uppon an other which som men call labores Herculis. 1633 Ford Love's Sacr. iii. iv, A pox upon your outlandish feminine anticks. 1823 Lamb Elia ii. v. (1865) 266 This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics amongst us. 1843 Lever Jack Hinton xxvii. 189 Performing more antics than Punch in a pantomine. |
† 3. A grotesque pageant or theatrical representation. Obs.
| 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. v. i. 119 Some delightfull ostentation, or show, or pageant, or anticke, or fire-worke. Ibid. v. i. 154 We will haue, if this fadge not, an Antique. 1633 Ford Love's Sacr. iii. ii, Performed by knights and ladies of his court, In nature of an antick. 1673 Ladies Call. ii. iii. §26 How preposterous is it for an old woman..to be at masks and dancings, when she is only fit to act the antics. |
b. Hence, A grotesque or motley company. rare.
| 1589 Warner Alb. Eng. (1612) 345 Heards-men, Sheap⁓heards, Plow-men, and Hinds: this Anticke of Groomes. |
4. A performer who plays a grotesque or ludicrous part, a clown, mountebank, or merry-andrew.
| 1564 Cap in Thynne's Animadv. App. 130 Thou wearest me..sometime lyke a Royster, sometime like a Souldiour, sometime lyke an Antique. 1592 Greene in Shaks. Cent. Praise 2 Those Anticks garnisht in our colours. 1618 Bp. Hall Serm. v. 113 Are they Christians, or Antics in some Carnival? 1671 Milton Samson 1325 Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics. 1719 De Foe Crusoe (1858) 341 Dancing and hallooing like an antic. 1827 Hood Mids. Fairies liv, How Puck, the antic..Had blithely jested with calamity. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, iii. ii. 162 There [death] the Antique sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his Pompe. [Cf. a 1631 in A 3. A death's head grins like an ‘antic.’] 1606 G. W[oodcocke] Hist. Justine 10 b, There flocked a great throng of souldiers about him, wondering at this so mishapen an Anticke. 1823 Lamb Elia ii. xxiv. (1865) 409 [A pun] is an antic which does not stand upon manners, but comes bounding into the presence. 1864 Dickens Mut. Fr. ii. i. 172 A little crooked antic of a child. |
† c. phr. to dance antics. Obs.
| 1544 R. Ascham Toxoph. (Arb.) 47 Myght be thought to daunce Anticke very properly. Ibid. 147 Menne that shoulde daunce antiques. 1602 Dekker Satirom. 245 Yet must we Dance Antickes on your Paper. [1635 Austin Medit. 208 Will Herod reward the Dance of an Antique with the Head of a Prophet? 1687 Congreve Old Bachelor iii. x. Stage Direct., After the song a dance of Antics.] |
5. Comb., as antick-cutter, a carver of grotesques.
| 1660 H. Bloome Archit. (title-page), Antick-Cutters. |
▪ II. antic, v.
(ˈæntɪk)
Pa. tense anticked, -ickt.
[f. prec. adj. and n.; cf. to caper and capers.]
† 1. trans. To make antic or grotesque. Obs.
| 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. ii. vii. 132 The wilde disguise hath almost Antickt vs all. |
2. intr. To perform antics, act as an antic. Also in phr. to antic it.
| 1589 Nashe in Greene Menaphon Ded. (Arb.) 17 They might have antickt it..up and downe the countrey with the King of Fairies. 1606 Warner Alb. Eng. xiv. xci. 367 Now Pincht they him, antickt about, and on, and off him lept. 1822 B. Cornwall Flood of Thessaly ii. 353 So, ere it slumber'd in entire repose, Antick'd the Ocean. 1829 Hood Epping Hunt lxxiv, Some rolled about, And anticked as they rode. 1879 G. Meredith Egoist Prel. 7 Until he begins insensibly to frolic and antic, unknown to himself. |