Definition of "antiquarianism" [an•ti•qua•ri•an•ism]

• Study or love of antiques; this sense is never pluralized (noun)
• Study or love of antiquity; this sense is never pluralized (noun)
• Archaism (noun)

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• "As much as I'd like us to dispose ourselves like Sarum-rite groomsmen or grave Spanish courtiers of the seventeenth century, I realize such antiquarianism is not a going concern."
• "He took to antiquarianism, which is a sort of philtre, driving its votaries mildly insane, and filling them with emotions which, on the whole, are probably more often happy than grievous."
• "Putting it this way, it seems to me, might forestall invidious appeals to sheer archivalism, or to a relevance-averse kind of antiquarianism that, in my experience, very few students of considerable ambition and intelligent conviction will now be likely to take up."