Word Confusion: Relic versus Relict

Plural: relics

Plural: relicts

• A part of a deceased holy person’s body or belongings kept as an object of reverence
• An object, custom, or belief that has survived from an earlier time but is now outmoded
• [relics] All that is left of something
  • Corpse
  • Remains

[Linguistics] A once widespread linguistic form that survives in a limited area but is otherwise obsolete

A thing which has survived from an earlier period or in a primitive form ²

• Remnant
• Survivor
• [Ecology] An animal or plant that has survived while others of its group have become extinct, e.g., the coelacanth
• [Ecology] A species or community that formerly had a wider distribution but now survives in only a few localities such as refugia
• [Geology] A physical feature, mineral, structure, etc. remaining after other components have wasted away or been altered

[Archaic] Relic

It was a museum dedicated to historic relics.

It was a custom that is a relic of paganism.

During the dig, the archaeological team found some relics from the Stone Age.

The country’s employment system is a relic of the 1960s when jobs were scarce.

The Shroud of Turin is the best-known and intensively studied relic of Jesus.

Individualized computer programming and time-sharing would become expensive relics.

They were but the relics of a lost civilization.

The isolation of the Appalachians has led to its having preserved many of the speech patterns of Shakespeare.

A small number of linguists believe that Cimbrian is not an Austro-Bavarian dialect but a relic of Lombardic.

She’s Old Barrow’s relict.

That was all a relict from the times of the Cold War, and had to go.

Then came the settlers from Europe, and by the second half of the 19th century this sea of wildlife had been reduced to a relict population of perhaps 1,500.

The species may be a relict of former stages of historical vegetation and landscape development resulting from past climate changes (glacial and post- glacial periods).

Dark rims around the pillows are caused by glaucophane enrichment, possibly a relict of a primary interaction between basalt and seawater, causing Na- enrichment in the original glass crust of the pillows.

1. From the Old French relicte meaning woman left behind, from the late Latin relicta, which is from the verb relinquere meaning leave behind.
2. Arose in the early 20th century and is from the Latin relictus, past participle of relinquere.