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View synonyms for bygone

bygone

[ bahy-gawn, -gon ]

adjective

  1. past; gone by; earlier; former:

    The faded photograph brought memories of bygone days.



noun

  1. Usually bygones. that which is past:

    Let's not talk of bygones.

bygone

/ ˈbaɪˌɡɒn /

adjective

  1. usually prenominal past; former
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


noun

  1. often plural a past occurrence
  2. often plural an artefact, implement, etc, of former domestic or industrial use, now often collected for interest
  3. let bygones be bygones
    to agree to forget past quarrels
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of bygone1

1375–1425; late Middle English (north) by-gane; gone, by
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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. let bygones be bygones, to decide to forget past disagreements; become reconciled:

    Let's let bygones be bygones and be friends again.

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Example Sentences

In a bygone era, visitors were allowed to feed them during ranger programs, but luckily management wised up and realized that, as the saying goes, a fed bear is a dead bear.

If the Rockets decide to turn seller at the trade deadline, they could nab a trove of assets in exchange for their vets, newcomers or remnants of the bygone Harden era.

A history of a gangster in a bygone time promises to be riveting, but there’s not enough there there to make this a book you can’t put down.

The schools’ marching bands played only on that screen and only in past appearances, meaning some clarinetist or other might have graduated without ever playing at a Rose Bowl, only to emerge from bygone to play at a Rose Bowl.

I deployed across the vast Pacific Ocean with a hundred other sailors on the USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class ship engineered in the bygone Cold War era to be one of the fastest, quietest, and deepest-diving submersibles ever constructed.

Blues music is often treated like a museum piece, a relic from a bygone day, but this band will make you want to get up and dance.

The outsized personalities of that time are also of a bygone era.

In those bygone days before cell phones, they had to rely on an elaborate “buddy system,” a telephone tree, and pay phones.

Three years on, doesn't it already feel like a leftover from a bygone era?

And now, dig into this profile of Royko, a giant from a bygone time.

The "organ beater" of bygone days was invariably accompanied by the "organ pumper," often by several of them.

But he failed to impose upon the Colonel, and was even far from impressing him with this trumped-up knowledge of bygone days.

It is indeed in the fancy of Shakespeare that this bygone sweetness and irony seem the oftener to be kindled and awakened.

Greetings to you and other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!

In the regions of the Midi, of bygone civilization, historical castles still standing are rare.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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