Origin of relict
Examples from the Web for relict
I reckoned that probably the relict would put a stone in the graveyard for me.The Skipper and the Skipped|Holman Day
We regret that the relict of the late Captain Budd did not behave exactly as became a shipmaster's widow, under fire.
Mrs. Tibbs looked at the relict of the departed Bloss, and thought he must have had very little peace in his time.Sketches by Boz|Charles Dickens
But balmy drops of the red grape borrow To bathe the relict from morn till night.Mitch Miller|Edgar Lee Masters
Here was a flight in science and nautical language that poor Mulford could not have anticipated, even in the captain's relict!
British Dictionary definitions for relict
- a group of animals or plants that exists as a remnant of a formerly widely distributed group in an environment different from that in which it originated
- (as modifier)a relict fauna
- a mountain, lake, glacier, etc, that is a remnant of a pre-existing formation after a destructive process has occurred
- a mineral that remains unaltered after metamorphism of the rock in which it occurs
Word Origin for relict
Word Origin and History for relict
"a widow," mid-15c., from Old French relict, fem. relicte "person or thing left behind" (especially a widow) and directly from Medieval Latin relicta "a widow," noun use of fem. of relictus "abandoned, left behind," past participle adjective from Latin relinquere "to leave behind" (see relinquish).