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LONG SINCE
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I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Of the distant or comparatively distant past
Example:
lang syne
Synonyms:
lang syne; long ago; long since
Classified under:
Context examples:
I do not know, my dear—but it is so long since she was here!—not since last Easter, and then only for a few days.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
When he came to his father’s house, he said he was his son; but the merchant would not believe him, and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long since dead: and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would not even give him anything to eat.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
"How long since he died?"
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I waved my cap (for my hat was long since worn out) and my handkerchief toward the island; and upon its nearer approach, I called and shouted with the utmost strength of my voice; and then looking circumspectly, I beheld a crowd gather to that side which was most in my view.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
If I could have hoped that Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out alone; but I knew he must have left long since.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But he had long since learned that there was such a thing as Chance, or Opportunity, and he continued to draw near.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Such atmospheric nuclear testing has long since stopped, and the present space environment remains dominated by natural phenomena.
(Space Weather Events Linked to Human Activity, NASA)
Long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
