First recorded in 1825–35
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the mural designed by the long-ago students, Chávez’s face was gone, covered up in swirls of color that gave no hint of what was once there.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
As they read your long-ago emails and memos, you want your years of hard work, passion and loyalty to your employer to jump off the page.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
Like Ted, Greg is also recovering from a long-ago divorce, but what forces him out of his shell is the implosion of his daughter’s.
From Salon ● May 11, 2026
Cavalcanti’s, no less brilliant in its execution, looks through the glass darkly, with painful scenes of long-ago squalor and depravity that sadly echo our own.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026
Dinner was a dizzying blur of names and faces, many of them half-remembered from photographs and my grandfather’s long-ago descriptions.
From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs
The Walkman disappeared long ago, but the sturdy, blue 1985 Toyota 4x4 pickup truck can still be found in the Texas Hill Country at Jeff Kent’s 3,000-acre ranch on the outskirts of San Antonio.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
We can observe galaxies beyond the Hubble distance because the light reaching us today was emitted long ago, when those galaxies were much closer.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
Seattleites, however, can attest that Burning Man’s ruin began long ago, pretty much since Microsofties and Amazonians invaded it in the early aughts.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
Saudi Arabia long ago signed the NPT but has not signed the Additional Protocol.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2026
I remembered a story my mother read to me long, long ago.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
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.
