ancientry

Noun

ancientry (countable and uncountable, plural ancientries)

1. (archaic) The quality or fact of being ancient or very old.
   • PEN, made of reed, cut, &c. like our pens, is of classical ancientry; but the first certain account of quill pens is in 636, in Isidore.1825, Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, Encyclopædia of Antiquities, volume I, London: John Nichols & Son, page 301
   • The far past and to-day rarely fail to please; it is the day before yesterday and yesterday which have lost their power to charm us by novelty and instant sympathy with our moods, and have also not yet acquired the glamour of ancientry, or the sentimental forgiveness we are willing to bestow on...1890, Gleeson White, editor, The Master Painters of Britain, London: Caxton, Volume I, Introductory, p. xix
2. (archaic) Old-fashioned style, elaborate ceremony.
   • […] wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into...1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • So he and Miss Vezzis were married with great state and ancientry; and now there are several little D'Cruzes sprawling about the verandahs of the Central Telegraph Office.1888, Rudyard Kipling, “His Chance in Life”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio, published 2005, page 58
3. (archaic) Elderly people, elders, ancients (collectively).
   • I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting—c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
   • The man and all his kin, the ancientry of England, were at deadly enmity with this Welshman who had curbed their power, and was bringing in a horde of new men to take their places.1931, John Buchan, chapter 3, in The Blanket of the Dark
4. (archaic) Something ancient (countable); ancient things (collectively).
   • Kings Lynn is a pleasant town to ramble about. […] In its quiet and more secluded streets you come upon bits of ancientry, the waifs and strays of monastic times […]1898, John Mortimer, “Yarmouth to Barmouth”, in Samples from the Note Books of an Uncommercial Traveller, page 91
   • […] the shopman’s slim, light fingers, with neat nails, touched them at moments, briefly, nervously, tenderly, as those of a chess-player rest, a few seconds, over the board, on a figure he thinks he may move and then may not: small florid ancientries, ornaments, pendants, lockets, brooches...1904 November 10, Henry James, chapter VI, in The Golden Bowl, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC
5. (archaic) The olden days; antiquity.
   • Ere all, in ancientry æterne, was God
     (Holy and blessed always be His name)
     In essence inconceivable.1855, Philip James Bailey, “A Spiritual Legend”, in The Mystic and Other Poems, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, published 1856, page 67