relicnoun/ˈɹɛlɪk/

• 1

  That which remains; that which is left after loss or decay; a remaining portion.

  • […] let him not ask our pardon; The nature of his great offence is dead, And deeper than oblivion we do bury The incensing relics of it […]
  • Though a Cup of cold water from ſome hand may not be without it's reward, yet ſtick not thou for Wine and Oyl for the Wounds of the Distreſſed, and treat the poor, as our Saviour did the Multitude, to the reliques of ſome baskets.
• 2

  Something old and outdated, possibly kept for sentimental reasons.

  • […] the imperfect light entering by their narrow casements showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory.
  • Published in 1982, the now out-of-print computer guide is a real relic, full of dozens of black-and-white pictures of large, bulky computers that you would sooner find in the Smithsonian than on anybody's desk today.
• 3

  lifestylereligionA part of the body of a saint, or an ancient religious object, kept for veneration.

  • Why ſhould onely I, Of all the other Princes of the World, Be caſ’d-vp, like a holy Relique?
  • No Anchorite in the exstasy of devotion, ever adored a relique with more fervour than that with which I kissed this inimitable proof of my charmer’s candour, generosity and affection!
• 4

  astronomycosmologynatural-sciencesA particle or entity that has existed since the Big Bang.

  • One of the primary targets of current and especially future cosmological observations are light thermal relics of the hot big bang.

relicverb/ˈɹɛlɪk/

• 1

  To cause (an object) to appear old or worn, to distress.

  • Age has become a fetish in the world of guitars where large amounts of money are paid for a specially “reliced” guitar. As one company, Relic Guitars, which offers this service claims, “The idea behind relicing a guitar is to artificially replicate the natural wear that occurs over many years […]”
  • The whole idea of relicing an instrument is to accelerate the wear and tear that normally occurs over decades.

relicadj/ˈɹɛlɪk/

• 1

  Pertaining to the Big Bang.

  • A more realistic model must include the presence of perturbations whose extra energy can produce distortions of the relic radiation spectrum.
  • While Lasserre acknowledges that physicists are still decades away from observing a direct relic neutrino signal, he says that this work represents an important step forward in the search for the holy grail of neutrino physics.