a while back

1. Also, a while ago. Some time in the past, as in I ran into Barbara a while back but didn't get her new address, or John wrote me a while ago about his new baby. This term uses a while in the sense of “a short or moderate time,” a usage dating from about 1300.

Example Sentences

“A while back she started telling stories about a goose whose mother was some kind of wild robot. We all thought she was joking, but I guess not!”

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I went with my son to the Macedonia game a while back and the atmosphere at Old Trafford was electric.

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“We called a shop in Austin a while back: ‘Hey, it’s a 17-year-old — think you can do it?’

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A while back, he had written out a list of goals in a diary: cleaning up his act, going back to school and planned to get married.

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Referring to side-by-side photos of Kardashian from a while back and from the recent Bezos-Sánchez wedding in Venice, Betteridge said she “looks dramatically different from a few years ago, and whether you see it as glow-up or glam makeover, there’s no denying she’s created a bold new look for herself.”

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Related Words

• already 
• earlier www.thesaurus.com
• heretofore 
• once