"ain't what it used to was" meaning in English

See ain't what it used to was in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} ain't what it used to was
  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Is not what it used to be; (expressing nostalgia). Tags: colloquial, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-ain't_what_it_used_to_was-en-phrase-28XkaU0j Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for ain't what it used to was meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "ain't what it used to was",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1852, Harper's New Monthly Magazine: Volume 5, Harper & Brothers, page 848",
          "text": "Thanksgiving 'ain't what it used to was.'",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1862, Albany Fonblanque, chapter XXIV, in The St. James's Magazine: Volume 5, Houlston & Wright, A Tangled Skein: A Romance, page 180",
          "text": "Your memory ain't what it used to was, my man, or what it ought to be.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920 October 23, Ellis Parker Butler, “A Pastoral”, in Judge (a satirical magazine)",
          "text": "Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop\nAnd said. \"It is jest like I suz\nT’ th’ parson—Grandfather’s liver\nAin’t what it used to was.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1948 December 17, The Winonan, volume XXX, number 3, Winona State Teachers College, Winona, Minn., page 2",
          "text": "With a few more years to procrastinate, as we used to say of the old gray mare, we'll be able to say of the elementary schools, \"It ain't what it used to was!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Is not what it used to be; (expressing nostalgia)."
      ],
      "id": "en-ain't_what_it_used_to_was-en-phrase-28XkaU0j",
      "links": [
        [
          "nostalgia",
          "nostalgia"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, idiomatic) Is not what it used to be; (expressing nostalgia)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ain't what it used to was"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "ain't what it used to was",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1852, Harper's New Monthly Magazine: Volume 5, Harper & Brothers, page 848",
          "text": "Thanksgiving 'ain't what it used to was.'",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1862, Albany Fonblanque, chapter XXIV, in The St. James's Magazine: Volume 5, Houlston & Wright, A Tangled Skein: A Romance, page 180",
          "text": "Your memory ain't what it used to was, my man, or what it ought to be.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920 October 23, Ellis Parker Butler, “A Pastoral”, in Judge (a satirical magazine)",
          "text": "Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop\nAnd said. \"It is jest like I suz\nT’ th’ parson—Grandfather’s liver\nAin’t what it used to was.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1948 December 17, The Winonan, volume XXX, number 3, Winona State Teachers College, Winona, Minn., page 2",
          "text": "With a few more years to procrastinate, as we used to say of the old gray mare, we'll be able to say of the elementary schools, \"It ain't what it used to was!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Is not what it used to be; (expressing nostalgia)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "nostalgia",
          "nostalgia"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial, idiomatic) Is not what it used to be; (expressing nostalgia)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ain't what it used to was"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.