Forms: 6–7 antike, -cke, 7–8 -ick, (7 antique), 6– antic. [app. ad. It. antico, but used as equivalent to It. grottesco, f. grotta, ‘a cauerne or hole vnder grounde’ (Florio), orig. applied to fantastic representations of human, animal, and floral forms, incongruously running into one another, found in exhuming some ancient remains (as the Baths of Titus) in Rome, whence extended to anything similarly incongruous or bizarre: see GROTESQUE. Cf. Serlio, Architettura (Venice, 1551), IV. lf. 70 a: ‘seguitare le uestigie de gli antiqui Romani, li quali costumarono di far … diuerse bizarrie, che si dicono grottesche.’ Apparently, from this ascription of grotesque work to the ancients, it was in English at first called antike, anticke, the name grotesco, grotesque, not being adopted till a century later. Antic was thus not developed in Eng. from ANTIQUE, but was a distinct use of the word from its first introduction. Yet in 17th c. it was occas. written antique, a spelling proper to the other word.]
A. adj.
1. Arch. and Decorative Art. Grotesque, in composition or shape; grouped or figured with fantastic incongruity; bizarre.
1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., an. 12 (R.). A fountayne of embowed woorke … ingrayled with anticke woorkes.
1589. Hawkins’ 2nd Voy., in Arb., Garner, V. 126. To paint their bodies with curious knots or antike work, as every man, in his own fancy deviseth.
1598. Florio, Grottesca, a kind of rugged vnpolished painters worke, anticke work. Ibid. (1603), Montaigne, I. xxvii. (1632), 89. All void places … he filleth up with antike Boscage or Grotesko workes.
1623. Cockeram, Anticke Worke, a worke in painting or caruing of diuers shapes of Beasts, Birds, Flowers, etc., vnperfectly mixt, and made one of another.
1624. Wotton, Archit., 97. Whether Grotesca (as the Italians) or Antique worke (as wee call it) should be receiued.
1703. City & Country Build., 5. Antick, or Antique-work … a confused Composure of Figures of different Natures, and Sexes, etc. As of Men, Beasts, Birds, Flowers, Fishes, etc. And such like Fancies as are not in Rerum Natura.… This Work which we call Antick, the Italians call Grotesca … and the French Grotesque.
1826. J. Elmes, Dict. Fine Arts, Antick, Odd, ridiculously wild.
2. Absurd from fantastic incongruity; grotesque, bizarre, uncouthly ludicrous: a. in gesture.
1590. Marlowe, Edw. II., I. i. 167. My men, like satyrs,… Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay.
1602. Shaks., Ham., I. v. 172. How strange or odde so ere I beare myselfe … To put an Anticke disposition on.
1603. Drayton, Her. Epist., xi. 13. A Satyres Anticke parts he play’d.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. 1851, 365. No antic hobnaile at a Morris, but is more hansomly facetious.
1660. H. More, Myst. Godl., III. ix. 77. Their religious Rites and Ceremonies being uncouth and antick.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, 183. He came running to me … making a many antic gestures.
1805. Wordsworth, Prel., VII. (1850), 178. An antic pair Of monkeys on his back.
1878. G. Macdonald, Phantastes, x. 149. Performing the most antic homage.
b. in shape.
1642. R. Carpenter, Exper., III. v. 53. To appeare in strange and antick shapes.
1788. New Lond. Mag., 17. Several antic figures in shapes of boys danced.
1861. Lytton & Fane, Tannhäuser, 20. The twilight troop’d with antic shapes.
c. in dress or attire.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1738, I. 125. It had no Rubric to be sung in an antic Cope upon the Stage of a High Altar.
1665. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., 96. Their antick deckings with feathers.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, III. vii. 223. Two rows of guards … dressed after a very antic manner.
1776. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 155/2. An ass … with a fellow in an antick dress riding upon it.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., I. 80. The papal guards, in the strangest antique and antic costume that was ever seen.
† 3. Having the features grotesquely distorted like ‘antics’ in architecture; grinning. Obs.
1594. Drayton, Idea, 424. Making withall some filthy Antike Face.
1611. Cotgr., Gargouille, The mouth of a Spowt, representing a Serpent, or the Anticke face of some other ouglie creature.
1620. Quarles, Jonah (1638), 41. Your mimick mouthes, your antick faces.
a. 1631. Donne, Elegies (1639), 85 (R.).
| Name not these living Death-heads unto me, | |
| For these, not Ancients, but Antiques be. |
a. 1659. Cleveland, Wks. (1687), 31. The Antick heads which plac’d without The Church, do gape and disembogue a Spout.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1729), III. I. 406. The little Tame-Owl … making divers antick faces.
4. Comb., as † antic-faced (see 3).
1635. J. Taylor (Water P.), Parr, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), IV. 205. An antick-faced fellow, called Jack, or John the Fool.
B. sb.
† 1. Arch. and Decorative Art. An ornamental representation, purposely monstrous, caricatured, or incongruous, of objects of the animal or the vegetable kingdom, or of both combined. a. Fantastic tracery or sculpture. Obs.
1548. Hall, Chron. Hen. VIII., an. 18 (R.). Aboue the arches were made many sondri antikes and diuises.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., II. vii. 4. Woven with antickes and wyld ymagery.
1645. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 146. The walls and roof are painted, not with antiques and grotesques, like our Bodleian.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. viii. A faire Cornucopia or Horne of abundance, such as you see in Anticks.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Grotesque or Grotesc, a work, the same with what is sometimes called Antick.
1830. R. Stuart, Dict. Archit.: Antics, In architecture, Fancies having no foundation in nature, as sphinxes, centaurs, syrens, representations of different sorts of flowers growing on the same stem; grotesque ornaments of all kinds, as lions and pards with acanthus’ tails, or any other tails but their own proper ones; human forms with similar ridiculous appendages. Ornaments, although strictly natural, in an unnatural situation; as, caryatidæ of all kinds…. The villa Palagonia, in Sicily, is an antic, from entrance gate to chimney top.
b. A caryatid, or (sculptured) human figure represented in an impossible position.
c. 1590. Marlowe, Faustus (2nd vers.), 1715. To make his monks … stand like apes, And point like antics at his triple crown.
1615. Bp. Hall, Contempl. (1837). I. XVIII. iii. 395. Like some antic statue, in a posture of impotent endeavour.
1638. Chillingworth, Relig. Prot., I. vi. § 54, 374. Those crouching Anticks which seeme in great buildings to labour under the weight they beare.
1640. Bp. Hall, Chr. Moder., 20/1. Those antics of stone … carved out under the end of great beams in vast buildings, which seem … as if they were hard put to it with the weight.
c. 1656. Hales, Gold. Rem. (1688), 167. Those that build houses make anticks that seem to hold up the beams.
1830. (See prec.).
c. A grotesquely figured representation of a face, such as are used in gargoyles.
1601. Holland, Pliny (1634), II. 552. To set vp Gargils or Antiques at the top of a Gauill end, as a finiall to the crest tiles.
1683. Lond. Gaz., mdccclix/8. Three Gold Seals, one with an Old Man’s Head, another with a Woman’s Head, and the other with an Antick.
2. A grotesque or ludicrous gesture, posture or trick; also fig. of behavior. (Commonly in pl.)
1529. Foxe, in Supplic. (1871), Introd. 9. In sothe it maketh me to laugh, to see ye mery Antiques of M. More.
1572. Sir T. Smith, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 191, III. 20. Vaulting with notable supersaltes and through hoopes, and last of all the Antiques, of carying of men one uppon an other which som men call labores Herculis.
1633. Ford, Love’s Sacr., III. iv. A pox upon your outlandish feminine anticks.
1823. Lamb, Elia, II. v. (1865), 266. This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics amongst us.
1843. Lever, Jack Hinton, xxvii. 189. Performing more antics than Punch in a pantomine.
† 3. A grotesque pageant or theatrical representation. Obs.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. i. 119. Some delightfull ostentation, or show, or pageant, or anticke, or fire-worke. Ibid., V. i. 154. We will haue, if this fadge not, an Antique.
1633. Ford, Love’s Sacr., III. ii. Performed by knights and ladies of his court, In nature of an antick.
1673. Ladies Call., II. iii. § 26. How preposterous is it for an old woman … to be at masks and dancings, when she is only fit to act the antics.
b. Hence, A grotesque or motley company. rare.
1589. Warner, Alb. Eng. (1612), 345. Heards-men, Sheapheards, Plow-men, and Hinds: this Anticke of Groomes.
4. A performer who plays a grotesque or ludicrous part, a clown, mountebank, or merry-andrew.
1564. Cap, in Thynne’s Animadv., App. 130. Thou wearest me … sometime lyke a Royster, sometime like a Souldiour, sometime lyke an Antique.
1592. Greene, in Shaks. Cent. Praise, 2. Those Anticks garnisht in our colours.
1618. Bp. Hall, Serm., v. 113. Are they Christians, or Antics in some Carnival?
1671. Milton, Samson, 1325. Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1858), 341. Dancing and hallooing like an antic.
1827. Hood, Mids. Fairies, liv. How Puck, the antic … Had blithely jested with calamity.
b. transf. and fig.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., III. ii. 162. There [death] the Antique sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his Pompe. [Cf. a. 1631, in A 3. A death’s head grins like an ‘antic.’]
1606. G. W[oodcocke], Hist. Justine, 10 b. There flocked a great throng of souldiers about him, wondering at this so mishapen an Anticke.
1823. Lamb, Elia, II. xxiv. (1865), 409. [A pun] is an antic which does not stand upon manners, but comes bounding into the presence.
1864. Dickens, Mut. Fr., II. i. 172. A little crooked antic of a child.
† c. phr. To dance antics. Obs.
1544. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 47. Myght be thought to daunce Anticke very properly. Ibid., 147. Menne that shoulde daunce antiques.
1602. Dekker, Satirom., 245. Yet must we Dance Antickes on your Paper.
[1635. Austin, Medit., 208. Will Herod reward the Dance of an Antique with the Head of a Prophet?
1687. Congreve, Old Bachelor, III. x. Stage Direct., After the song a dance of Antics.]
5. Comb., as antick-cutter, a carver of grotesques.
1660. H. Bloome, Archit. (title-page), Antick-Cutters.
