Old English
Proper noun
  1. (linguistics, history) The ancestor language of Modern English, also called Anglo-Saxon, spoken in most of Britain from about 400 to 1100.
    Synonyms: Anglo-Saxon
    cot en
  2. (nonstandard, colloquial, proscribed) 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.
Translations


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Offline English dictionary