time immemorial
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: times immemorial
Senses: examples: text: from time immemorial
text: My home is in the North of Palestine on the other side of Jordan, beyond the Sea of Galilee. My family has dwelt there from time immemorial, but they always loved this city, and have a legend that they dwelt occasionally within its walls, even in the days when Titus from that hill looked down upon the temple.
ref: 1870, B[enjamin] Disraeli, chapter XVII, in Lothair. […], volume III, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, pages 177–178:
text: The tower had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from time immemorial, the western façade conveniently forming the boundary of the churchyard at that end, where the ground was trodden hard and bare as a pavement by the players.
ref: 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
text: She had worn from time immemorial an old blue satin dress, and a white crape shawl embroidered in colors; […]
ref: 1875 January–December, Henry James, Jr., Roderick Hudson, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., published 1876, →OCLC; republished as Roderick Hudson (EBook #176), U.S.A.: Project Gutenberg, 18 September 2016:
text: In every Circular or Polygonal household it has been a habit from time immemorial[…]that the mothers and daughters should constantly keep their eyes and mouths towards their husband and his male friends; and for a lady in a family of distinction to turn her back upon her husband would be regarded as a kind of portent, involving loss of status.
ref: 1884, A Square [pseudonym; Edwin A. Abbott], Flatland […] , London: Seeley & Co., Part I: This World, § 4.— Concerning the Women:
text: The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
ref: 1888 [1848], Samuel Moore, transl., edited by Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, translation of Das Kommunistische Manifest by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels:
text: This is a great tract of a hundred thousand acres, which from time immemorial has been a hunting preserve of the nobility.
ref: 1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC:
text: That there is and from time immemorial has been within that part of the parish called Mablethorpe St. Mary's a laudable custom that, if any outdweller take ancient pasture ground, he shall pay a modus of 4d. an acre, and so in proportion, on the 1st of August, in lieu of all manner of tithe; and that if any of the ancient pasture be once ploughed up or meadowed, it shall, when restored to pasture again, pay 4d. the acre in the hands of such outdweller.
ref: 1917, The English Reports: Exchequer, page 789:
text: This thing is a "pyramid" since time immemorial, shit goes downhill, money goes up: it's that simple.
ref: 2002 September 15, David Chase, “For All Debts Public and Private”, in The Sopranos, season 4, episode 1, spoken by Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini):
synonyms: time out of mind
glosses: Time that extends beyond memory or record.
topics: law
glosses: Time before 6 July 1189.
Related terms: in living memory
saeculum