RELIC • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Relic

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/rˈɛlɪk/ Listen

noun

Relic n. (Formerly written also relique)

That which remains; that which is left after loss or decay; a remaining portion; a remnant. "The relics of lost innocence." "The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics."

The body from which the soul has departed; a corpse; especially, the body, or some part of the body, of a deceased saint or martyr; usually in the plural when referring to the whole body. "There are very few treasuries of relics in Italy that have not a tooth or a bone of this saint." "Thy relics, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And sacred place by Dryden's awful dust."

Hence, a memorial; anything preserved in remembrance; as, relics of youthful days or friendships. "The pearls were spilt; Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept."

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Etymology of 'Relic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Relic" Quotes from Famous Books

... on—as the motor, not the crow, flies—we came to Nesle, or what once was Nesle. The ghost of the twelfth-century church looms in skeleton form above one more Pompeii among the many forced by the Germans upon France: but save for that towering relic of the past there's little left of this brave town of the Somme, which was historic before the thirteenth century. It gave its name to a famous fighting family of feudal days: and through the last heiress of the line—a beauty and a "catch"—a certain Seigneur ...

— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... worship, especially the Ancient Grove Worship of Assyria. He shows that the object of veneration was a male date palm, which represented the Assyrian god Baal. Sex was worshipped under this deity, and it is shown that the tree of the Assyrian grove was a phallic symbol. Palm Sunday appears to be a relic of this worship. In France, until comparatively recent times, there was a festival, "La Fete des Pinnes," in which palms were carried in procession, and with the palms were carried phalli of bread which had been blessed by ...

— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... use of the phrase "its own Centre," which became an important Quaker term, is an interesting relic of Boehme's influence. ...

— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... strange. Mrs. Hale's dressing-room was left untouched to the last; and there she and Dixon were packing up clothes, and interrupting each other every now and then to exclaim at, and turn over with fond regard, some forgotten treasure, in the shape of some relic of the children while they were yet little. They did not make much progress with their work. Down-stairs, Margaret stood calm and collected, ready to counsel or advise the men who had been called in to help the cook and Charlotte. These two last, crying between whiles, wondered how the young lady ...

— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Norman had given her, and gave a sigh as she slipped it into the shelf of the seldom used. She looked about the room, cleared out the last piece of brown paper, and burned the last torn envelope, that no relic of packing and change might distress Margaret's eyes for order; then feeling at once desolate and intrusive, she sat down in Flora's fireside chair, opened her desk, and took out her last time-table. She looked at it for some ...

— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

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