Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use ancient in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Ancient means having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age, very old. Example: “The ancient Mesopotamians never got to write an encyclopedia on stone.”

Examples of ancient by meaning

adjectiveHaving lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age, very old.

  • an ancient city
  • an ancient forest
  • 'An Alsatia like the ancient one behind the Strand, or the Saffron Hill before the First World War.1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword: The Turk Street Mile”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 2

adjectiveExistent or occurring in time long past, usually in remote ages; belonging to or associated with antiquity; old, as...

  • an ancient author
  • an ancient empire
  • Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia.2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion, →OL

nounA person who is very old.

  • Piper watched them with a lynx-eyed understanding and before the ancient was well upon his road his way was blocked by Hetty.1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 131

nounA person who lived in ancient times.

  • What is ancient for us was in its own time a reworking of what was ancient for the ancients.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London...

More sentences with ancient

  • The ancient Mesopotamians never got to write an encyclopedia on stone.From the entry encyclopedia
  • In very ancient or poorly documented languages, the precise semantics of words tend to be uncertain.From the entry semantics
  • Hannibal was one of the greatest generals of the ancient world.From the entry general
  • The ancient Britons were particularly fond of Anglesey, which the Romans knew as Mona.From the entry Briton
  • The ancient Egyptian demonstrated that the Earth is round, not flat.From the entry round
  • A literary historian, she specialized in the dialogues of ancient Greek philosophers.From the entry dialogue
  • At the historic site, there are a number of interpreters who demonstrate ancient crafts.From the entry interpreter
  • The Indus River valley was the site of an ancient civilization.From the entry valley
  • His erudite knowledge of ancient history made him a sought-after speaker.From the entry erudite
  • They quarried out new, interesting facts about ancient Egypt from old papyri.From the entry quarry
  • The ancient Egyptians practiced circumcision by creating a dorsal incision in the foreskin.From the entry circumcision
  • The ancient aqueducts are a testament to the great engineering skill of the Roman Empire.From the entry testament
  • The ancient Italic languages that are now extinct include Oscan, Umbrian, and South Picene.From the entry italic
  • Solar eclipses continued to mystify ancient humans for thousands of years.From the entry mystify
  • The ancient Romans deconsecrated city walls with a plow, undoing the rituals that first established their course.From the entry deconsecrate
  • The museum curator went to the shelf and pulled down an ancient metering device.From the entry metering
  • This ancient wash was an egressive channel that once drained a lake.From the entry egressive
  • Modern-day Greek is a lot different from ancient Greek, or koine.From the entry modern-day
  • Who cares if he said those things at the beginning of the year? That's ancient history now.From the entry ancient history
  • The philosophical ideas of the ancient Greeks endure to this day.From the entry to this day
  • Ancient civilizations told time at night by the passage of stars.From the entry tell time
  • The ancient people have a belief in many deities.From the entry belief
  • He had an arcane knowledge of ancient rituals.From the entry arcane
  • The ancient city of Petra was annexed by Rome.From the entry annex
  • The secular games of ancient Rome were held to mark the end of a saeculum and the beginning of the next.From the entry secular
  • Ancient Sparta used iron bars instead of handy coins in more valuable alloy, to physically discourage the use of money.From the entry bar
  • Outside the ancient fort, you can still see worn areas in the stone where the batteries were once placed.From the entry battery
  • An ancient amulet was discovered in the ruins.From the entry amulet
  • The ancients regarded linseed as a source of medical benefits.From the entry linseed
  • Once widespread across Europe in medieval times, nations are now largely restricted to the ancient universities of Sweden and Finland.From the entry nation
  • The custom has its origin in ancient Greece.From the entry origin
  • The curators took preservative actions to maintain the ancient collection.From the entry preservative

Meaning of ancient

  1. adjective Having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age, very old.
  2. adjective Existent or occurring in time long past, usually in remote ages; belonging to or associated with antiquity; old, as opposed to modern.
  3. adjective Relating to antiquity as a primarily European historical period; the time before the Middle Ages.

Full definition of ancient

Questions about ancient in a sentence

How do you use ancient in a sentence?
Ancient is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The ancient Mesopotamians never got to write an encyclopedia on stone.”
What is a short sentence with ancient?
“an ancient author”
What does ancient mean?
Ancient means having lasted from a remote period; having been of long duration; of great age, very old.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ancient (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use ancient in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/ancient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.