How to Use long-ago in a Sentence

long-ago

1 of 2 adjective
  • There was a grassy smell, the long-ago seeping out of the earth.
    Meredith Maran, Los Angeles Times, 18 Apr. 2023
  • The knolls are crowned with scrub oak and the slopes are swept bare from a long-ago fire.
    Roger Naylor, The Arizona Republic, 2 Aug. 2024
  • Bringing Duvall back to the Bay would right a long-ago wrong.
    Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 2 Jan. 2024
  • That was back when things were different, in the long-ago world of 2014 or so.
    Brooke Jarvis, New York Times, 21 Oct. 2023
  • This book holds a special place in my heart as my long-ago intro to the genre.
    Lizz Schumer, Peoplemag, 7 Mar. 2024
  • Then the long-ago baseball lessons from his mother kicked in.
    Hikari Hida, New York Times, 26 July 2023
  • The plot of land’s long-ago owner came up with a direct method of keeping the outside world at bay.
    Bob Greene, WSJ, 6 Mar. 2023
  • My long-ago ancestors may very well have enjoyed the fruit.
    Aaron Hutcherson, Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2024
  • Indeed, faint outlines of long-ago lakes have been spotted in the region.
    Katherine Kornei, Discover Magazine, 14 Nov. 2023
  • One of them remembered me from a long-ago visit and greeted me like the prodigal son.
    Robert Klose, The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Apr. 2023
  • By season’s end, your current era will feel like a whole ’nother long-ago lifetime.
    Jennifer Culp, Them, 16 Aug. 2024
  • The question of what took place in the boy’s bedroom that day during their long-ago childhood haunts NDiaye’s book.
    Katie Kitamura, The Atlantic, 13 Dec. 2023
  • His section on cholera opens with his own long-ago purchase of a book, in Paris, on Marcel Proust’s father, Adrien.
    Julia M. Klein, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Sep. 2023
  • Browse the museum, hike the trails — the Tower Trail takes you to the site of the long-ago observation tower — then check out the town’s art galleries and murals.
    Jackie Burrell, The Mercury News, 8 Apr. 2024
  • No quotes from long-ago laureates in this one — just Colby’s own brilliance.
    Drew Goins, Washington Post, 2 July 2024
  • In a long-ago interview, the director Mike Nichols cautioned a nascent film reviewer to not mistake the dancer for the dance.
    Lisa Kennedy, New York Times, 5 Sep. 2023
  • At a Michigan orchard, a woman tells her three daughters about a long-ago romance.
    The California Independent Booksellers Alliance, Los Angeles Times, 28 Feb. 2024
  • Cloutier said these beings are integral to the story and leftovers from that long-ago era.
    Gieson Cacho, The Mercury News, 26 Mar. 2024
  • The former is a long-ago time when the universe was just a sea of neutral hydrogen gas; the latter a slightly later time when the first stars turned on.
    Sarah Scoles, Quanta Magazine, 20 Sep. 2023
  • On that long-ago October afternoon, Willy told me about back-breaking farm work, long hot days and long cold nights.
    Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 24 Aug. 2023
  • In each show, we’re plunged into a louche, long-ago decade, in which drug-fuelled, antic musicians make art as though the world were ending.
    Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 26 Apr. 2024
  • That long-ago King William Parade was filled with memorable moments.
    Elaine Ayala, San Antonio Express-News, 6 Mar. 2023
  • Fonda’s Vivian, with her chic shag hair and spiky wit to match, had found love with her long-ago paramour, played by a very winning Don Johnson; the two are now set to be married.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 7 May 2023
  • Green has become the modern-day equivalent of Bill Laimbeer, the long-ago center on the bad-boy Detroit Pistons.
    Ron Kroichick, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 Apr. 2023
  • Yet the long-ago Fed chair and his contemporaries mostly believed that the Fed’s vast power should be used in a limited way.
    Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2023
  • The amendment permits lawsuits over long-ago conduct to be filed during a two-year window that began on March 1.
    Victoria Bisset, Washington Post, 26 July 2023
  • Don’t blame or shame – but explain your interpretation of this long-ago event.
    Amy Dickinson, Detroit Free Press, 3 June 2023
  • Now two of these nurseries are gone, casualties of a long-ago state budget crisis.
    Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News, 9 Sep. 2024
  • Yet one noticed the difference between their long-ago campaign and Harris’s.
    Nathan Heller, Vogue, 11 Oct. 2024
  • Evidence of one ancient example still exists around the edges of the Himalayas, where long-ago river capture eroded deep gorges.
    Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 30 Sep. 2024
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long ago

2 of 2 noun
  • Sparse shoots of grass have long ago grown over the dirt.
    Carly Tagen-Dye, Peoplemag, 10 July 2024
  • Not that long ago, there was O’Doul’s and Sharp's, and that was it.
    Nicole Haase, Journal Sentinel, 29 Dec. 2022
  • The group long ago stopped trying to catch the last owlet.
    Zachary T. Sampson, Sun Sentinel, 4 Dec. 2022
  • Not too long ago, the Coastal League was among the county’s best.
    John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Jan. 2023
  • Germany was the trading hotspot of the world not too long ago.
    Byprarthana Prakash, Fortune, 21 Sep. 2023
  • But actions long ago set the stage for the bulk of the increases.
    Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Nov. 2023
  • There was a time—and not very long ago—that would have scoffed at 11% growth.
    Dan Gallagher, WSJ, 30 Nov. 2023
  • The decade wasn’t that long ago, but there’s already been signs that point to yes.
    Christian Allaire, Vogue, 14 Dec. 2022
  • That’s one lesson boomers seem to have learned long ago.
    Byjane Thier, Fortune, 13 Aug. 2023
  • The windows and doors had long ago been blown out from the force of nearby blasts.
    Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY, 7 Apr. 2024
  • The answer to that question, the agency says, is not too long ago.
    Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Dec. 2023
  • And the Kremlin long ago gave up caring about its image in the West.
    Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2023
  • Not long ago, the world was on track to eliminate hunger.
    New York Times, 1 Aug. 2022
  • Once, long ago, a creature not quite human walked the Earth.
    Phil Plait, Scientific American, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Not that long ago, pitchers had teeth pulled to treat their arms.
    Zach Helfand, The New Yorker, 24 June 2024
  • Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice.
    Veronique Greenwood, WIRED, 11 Aug. 2024
  • The old courthouse, which long ago served as a custom house for trade ships.
    Rebecca Ellis, Anchorage Daily News, 12 Aug. 2023
  • The bruises from his time as a hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran faded long ago.
    Ian Shapira, Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2023
  • Seawater can flood the tower and breakers pound the roof and broke the glass long ago.
    Jeastman, oregonlive, 29 Mar. 2023
  • Bouie saw her son have one of these nightmares not too long ago.
    Ariane Lange, Sacramento Bee, 9 May 2024
  • The Eisenhower wing of the GOP was rooted out long ago.
    Brynn Tannehill, The New Republic, 26 July 2022
  • At 35 years old, Kershaw long ago lost the mid-90s mph life his fastball used to boast.
    Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 6 Sep. 2023
  • In that playground, long ago, there’d been a saying: true as tripe.
    Graham Swift, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2022
  • But on a global scale, that price shock ended long ago.
    Paul Wiseman and Evelyne Musambi, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Apr. 2023
  • To dream and to own Owning a home seemed a fantasy not too long ago, Sanders said.
    Jaime Moore-Carrillo, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 Feb. 2024
  • To tell you how long ago that was, Sanchez Vicario has been retired since 2002.
    Joshua Robinson, WSJ, 28 Aug. 2022
  • And while most voters long ago made up their minds, a sliver of the electorate has yet to make a choice.
    Laurent Belsie, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Sep. 2024
  • People made up their minds about Mulkey long ago, so trying to set the record straight would just be a waste of time.
    Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 30 Mar. 2023
  • Not too long ago, Tribe CBD published a post exploring the equally famous drink scotch & soda.
    Rowan Briggs, The Mercury News, 28 Oct. 2024
  • The Yankees’ twenty-seven World Series titles long ago made the team barons of baseball certitude.
    Nicholas Dawidoff, The New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'long-ago.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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