yesteryear

[ yes-ter-yeer, -yeer ]

/ ˈyɛs tərˈyɪər, -ˌyɪər /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR yesteryear ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

last year.

the recent years; time not long past.

adverb

during time not long past.

RELATED WORDS

past, eld

Nearby words

Origin of yesteryear

yester- + year; apparently introduced by D.G. Rossetti (1870) to render Middle French antan (Villon)

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for yesteryear

But the question is, could a thawing of relations result in a return to the mobbed-up action of yesteryear?
Will Hyman Roth Return to Havana With Normalized Relations?|John L. Smith|December 18, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Or a horse and carriage, like the one driven a young man in a tweed suit and cap from yesteryear, as he gazed up at the stars.
The Crazy Medieval Island of Sark|Liza Foreman|October 4, 2014|DAILY BEAST
I could use this opportunity to become as stylish and perhaps as divine as many of the heroines of yesteryear.
A Breast Cancer Alphabet: F Is For Fashion Accessories|Madhulika Sikka|February 23, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But here the design resembled something from track practice on a muddy English lawn from yesteryear, rather than high-tech Adidas.
Viktor & Rolf's Prep School|Liza Foreman|September 28, 2013|DAILY BEAST

Perhaps the inspration was elegant ladies from yesteryear, waiting for their pilots to come home?
Salvatore Ferragamo's Military Hints|Liza Foreman|September 23, 2013|DAILY BEAST
She had gone out of his life as a commonplace incident slips into the oblivion of yesteryear.
'Firebrand' Trevison|Charles Alden Seltzer
They belong rather more to the sort of music that has no more relation with yesteryear than it has with this or next.
Musical Portraits|Paul Rosenfeld
Lower, and even Middle bars and restaurants were universally automated, and the waiter or waitress a thing of yesteryear.
Mercenary|Dallas McCord Reynolds
That was the word the sloppy copyist of yesteryear had wrongly transcribed.
G-r-r-r...!|Roger Arcot
He writes better about Manet than about an amatory encounter of yesteryear.
The Critical Game|John Albert Macy

British Dictionary definitions for yesteryear

yesteryear

/ (ˈjɛstəˌjɪə) formal, or literary /

noun

last year or the past in general

adverb

during last year or the past in general

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

Word Origin and History for yesteryear

yesteryear

coined 1870 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti from yester(day) + year to translate French antan (from Vulgar Latin *anteannum "the year before") in a refrain by François Villon: Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? which Rossetti rendered "But where are the snows of yesteryear?"