classics

13 7.4

Study of the languages, stories, and daily life of ancient Greece and Rome

noun
/ˈklæsɪks/

: filología clásica

Many universities offer courses in classics, focusing on the cultures of Greece and Rome.
Classics department
Penguin Classics
Oxford World's Classics

A masters, of course, classics, but also bacteriology.

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Examples

Charles Clark graduated from Dartmouth College in 2011 with a Classics major and an English minor.

Blog text (16)
Prof. James Tatum, Classics Department, Dartmouth College, kindly assisted with this translation.

Academic text (2011)
And if so, where does it leave classics and the rest of the traditional humanities?

Stanford
" No, and he's only been a Classics major for a year, too.

Fiction book (1991)
I minored in the Classics.

Inherent Vice (2014)
Professor Baxter teaches "Classics of English Literature," once a week for the ten-week.

Fiction book (1997)
She decided to study classics because she loved ancient Greek literature.
He found the field of classics fascinating, particularly the works of ancient philosophers.

Synonyms

classical philology

vsclassics

Specialized

9.9

Study of ancient languages and texts like Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit

focuses on the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome rather than deep language analysis

Surface Forms

classic singular

classics plural

Morphology

classics = classic (opaque) = classic + s

Although formed from 'classic' + plural -s, the specialized meaning 'the academic study of classical languages and literature' cannot be reliably derived by learners from the base noun alone.

Etymology

Classics comes from the old Latin word classicus, which meant 'first class' or 'top'. The same root is in the English words classic and class, so classics are the old Greek and Roman books, art, and culture people saw as the best, and that is why the subject studies those important works.