Relic

Literary Practical culture art sociology

Etymology

From Latin “reliquiae” (remains), from “relinquere” (to leave behind), from “re-” plus “linquere” (to leave) — the same root behind “relinquish” and “delinquent.” In Christian practice relics are venerated bones or objects believed to retain the holiness of a saint. A secular sense — “a relic of a bygone age” — keeps the core idea of something left over from a vanished world.

noun · /REL-ik/
A surviving physical remnant of the sacred past, especially a saint’s remains or belongings.
What it names
A material trace charged with the presence of who or what it survived — and, loosely, any outdated survival from the past.
Example
The fax machine sat in the corner like a relic, kept for the one client who still insisted on it.
Related idea
A relic is a material remnant carrying the aura of what it outlived; a vestige is a faint surviving trace of something largely gone, without the charge of veneration.