"time was" meaning in All languages combined

See time was on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Head templates: {{head|en|non-constituent}} time was
  1. It was once true (that)...; there was a time when... Related terms: way back when, once upon a time, long ago
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "a. 1659, Jonathan Mitchell, editor, The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied [sermons of Thomas Shepard], 1797 edition, volume 2, page 259 http://books.google.com/books?id=uvI2AAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA259&dq=glorious",
          "text": "Time was, the feet of the messengers of peace were glorious, but now their message is mean; […] time was, thou wert exceeding tender of the least sin, and not a day past, but thy cheeks were wet in secret before the Lord; now thou art grown blind […] ."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1879, John Berwick Harwood, Young Lord Penrith, chapter 34; as serialized in, 1879 June 21, Chambers's Journal, fourth series, number 808; which was reprinted in, Chambers's Journal 1879, page 387 http://books.google.com/books?id=mtwXAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA387&dq=%22but+time+was+that%22",
          "text": "I call him poor; but time was, that in our intercourse I was the obliged party."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Linda B. Nilson, Teaching at Its Best, 3rd edition, Jossey-Bass, →ISBN, page xvii:",
          "text": "Liberal arts and community colleges as well as other teaching-centered institutions have always promoted high standards of teaching excellence. But time was that no one really cared much what instructors in more research-oriented universities did in the classroom, as long as it was legal.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It was once true (that)...; there was a time when..."
      ],
      "id": "en-time_was-en-phrase-owLBRllG",
      "links": [
        [
          "true",
          "true"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "way back when"
        },
        {
          "word": "once upon a time"
        },
        {
          "word": "long ago"
        }
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  "word": "time was"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "way back when"
    },
    {
      "word": "once upon a time"
    },
    {
      "word": "long ago"
    }
  ],
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        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "a. 1659, Jonathan Mitchell, editor, The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied [sermons of Thomas Shepard], 1797 edition, volume 2, page 259 http://books.google.com/books?id=uvI2AAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA259&dq=glorious",
          "text": "Time was, the feet of the messengers of peace were glorious, but now their message is mean; […] time was, thou wert exceeding tender of the least sin, and not a day past, but thy cheeks were wet in secret before the Lord; now thou art grown blind […] ."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1879, John Berwick Harwood, Young Lord Penrith, chapter 34; as serialized in, 1879 June 21, Chambers's Journal, fourth series, number 808; which was reprinted in, Chambers's Journal 1879, page 387 http://books.google.com/books?id=mtwXAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA387&dq=%22but+time+was+that%22",
          "text": "I call him poor; but time was, that in our intercourse I was the obliged party."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Linda B. Nilson, Teaching at Its Best, 3rd edition, Jossey-Bass, →ISBN, page xvii:",
          "text": "Liberal arts and community colleges as well as other teaching-centered institutions have always promoted high standards of teaching excellence. But time was that no one really cared much what instructors in more research-oriented universities did in the classroom, as long as it was legal.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It was once true (that)...; there was a time when..."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "true",
          "true"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "time was"
}

Download raw JSONL data for time was meaning in All languages combined (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (ee63ee9 and 4230888). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.