#122. [Retrospective time.] The Past -- N. the past, past time; days of yore, times of yore, days of old, times of old, days past, times past, days gone by, times gone by; bygone days; old times, ancient times, former times; fore time; the good old days, the olden time, good old time; auld lang syne[obs]; eld|.
antiquity, antiqueness[obs], status quo; time immemorial; distance of time; remote age, remote time; remote past; rust of antiquity
[study of the past] paleontology, paleography, paleology[obs]; paleozoology; palaetiology[obs], archaeology; paleogeography; paleoecology; paleobotany; paleoclimatoogy; archaism, antiquarianism, medievalism, Pre-Raphaelitism; paleography.
retrospect, retrospection, looking back, memory &c. 505.
laudator temporis acti[Lat]; medievalist, Pre-Raphaelite; antiquary, antiquarian; archmologist &c.[obs]; Oldbuck, Dryasdust.
ancestry &c. (paternity) 166.
V. be past &c. adj.; have expired &c. adj., have run its course, have had its day; pass; pass by, go by , pass away, go away , pass off, go off; lapse, blow over.
look back, trace back, cast the eyes back; exhume.
Adj. past, gone, gone by, over, passed away, bygone, foregone; elapsed, lapsed, preterlapsed[obs], expired, no more, run out, blown over, has-been, that has been, extinct, antediluvian, antebellum, never to return, gone with the wind, exploded, forgotten, irrecoverable; obsolete &c. (old) 124.
former, pristine, quondam, ci-devant[Fr], late; ancestral.
foregoing; last, latter; recent, over night; preterperfect[obs], preterpluperfect[obs].
looking back &c. v.; retrospective, retroactive; archaeological &c. n.
Adv. paleo-; archaeo-; formerly; of old, of yore; erst[Ger], whilom, erewhile[obs], time was, ago, over; in the olden time &c. n.; anciently, long ago, long since; a long while, a long time ago; years ago, yesteryear, ages ago; some time ago, some time since, some time back.
yesterday, the day before yesterday; last year, ultimo; lately &c. (newly) 123.
retrospectively; ere now, before now, till now; hitherto, heretofore; no longer; once, once upon a time; from time immemorial, from prehistoric times; in the memory of man; time out of mind; already, yet, up to this time; ex post facto.
Phr. time was; the time has been, the time hath been; you can't go home again; fuimus Troes [Lat][Vergil]; fruit Ilium [Vergil]; hoc erat in more majorum[Lat]; "O call back yesterday, bid time return" [Richard II]; tempi passati[It]; "the eternal landscape of the past" [Tennyson]; ultimus Romanorum[Lat]; "what's past is prologue" [Tempest]; "whose yesterdays look backward with a smile" [Young].