Old English

English

Proper noun

Old English

  1. (linguistics, historical) The ancestor language of Modern English, also called Anglo-Saxon, spoken in most of Britain from about 400 AD to 1100.
  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.

Synonyms

Translations

See also
  • Wiktionary's coverage of Old English terms
  • Germanic

Further reading
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