Alternative plural form of antiquary; people devoted to studying and collecting old and rare things, particularly books, documents, or artifacts.
From Latin antiquarius. The -ies ending is a variant plural that became standard in certain contexts, similar to how 'secretary' becomes 'secretaries.' Used interchangeably with antiquarians.
English has multiple plurals for the same root word—antiquaries vs. antiquarians—which shows how older scholarly vocabularies sometimes offered choices. Most people forgot about the -ies version, but it survived in specific institutional contexts like 'Society of Antiquaries.'
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