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e, or time not long past; late; not ancient or remote in past time; of recent period; as, modern days, ages, or time; modern authors; modern fashions; modern taste; modern practice. Bacon.

Modern practice; a thing of recent date; esp., a modern usage or mode of expression.

One who admires the moderns, or their ways and fashions.

Modernness; something modern. Walpole.

The act of rendering modern in style; the act or process of causing to conform to modern of thinking or acting.

To render modern; to adapt to modern person or things; to cause to conform to recent or present usage or taste. Percy.

One who modernizes.

In modern times. Milton.

The quality or state of being modern; recentness; novelty. M. Arnold.

uide to pronunciation, §§ 43-74. The regular long a, as in fate, etc., is a comparatively modern sound, and has taken the place of what, till about the early part of the 17th century, was a sound of the quality of ä (as in far).

n abstract name which stands for an attribute of a thing. A practice has grown up in more modern times, which, if not introduced by Locke, has gained currency from his example, of applying the expression "abstract name" to all names which are the result of abstraction and generalization, and consequently to all general…

he taking surreptitiously for one's own use part of the property of another; purloining. [Modern]

g. [Obs.] Here the word "baron" is not to be taken in that restrictive sense to which the modern acception hath confined it. Fuller. Acception of persons or faces (Eccl.), favoritism; partiality. [Obs.] Wyclif.

ble hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substance of extreme hardness; but in modern minerology it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness. Opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield. Milton.

l square shield, formerly worn on the shoulders of knights, -- being the prototype of the modern epaulet. Fairholt.

onized chorals, psalmody, part songs, etc., the part which bears the tune or melody -- in modern harmony usually the upper part -- is sometimes called the air.

into gold, to find the panacea, or universal remedy for diseases, etc. It led the way to modern chemistry.

A foot of three syllables, the middle one long, the first and last short (as, h. In modern prosody the accented syllable takes the place of the long and the unaccented of the short; as, pro-phet''ic.

ast; specifically applied to the times before the fall of the Roman empire; -- opposed to modern; as, ancient authors, literature, history; ancient days. Witness those ancient empires of the earth. Milton. Gildas Albanius . . . much ancienter than his namesake surnamed the Wise. Fuller.

Old, as respects the present age, or a modern period of time; of old fashion; antiquated; as, an antique robe. "Antique words." Spenser.