ancient history
9
4.4
- noun
- /ˈeɪnʃənt ˈhɪstəri/
- Informal
:
cosa del pasado
- It's only 70 years from the start, and most kids in school think that it's ancient history.
- seem like ancient history
So you know, like that's Socrates is ancient history to Epictetus.
- So you know, like that's Socrates is ancient history to Epictetus.
- When our time, you and I, we together become ancient history.
Examples
-
So this discussion is at best a passing snapshot, one that will probably seem like ancient history a decade from now.
Academic text (1999) -
In my family, it's what we like to refer to as ancient history.
-
For everyone else, it's ancient history.
-
"What did he do to you?" The food fight was ancient history.
Fiction book (1990) -
Rush keeps bringing up 2010 also, but it's ancient history.
Blog text (11) -
But like I said, that's ancient history.
-
Anyway, that's all ancient history.
-
Are we going to dredge up ancient history again?
Fiction book (1990) -
It's all ancient history.
-
For many people, the debate over phone privacy is just ancient history.
Synonyms
87
6.8
A person who was famous or successful but no longer is
29
3.8
Something that people do not use or think about anymore
8
3.9
Something that happened in the past and is no longer important
4
7.1
Not interesting or fashionable because people have seen it before
2
7.2
An object, custom, or idea from long ago that seems out of date
An old object that reminds people of an earlier time
Antonyms
How Relevant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'ancient' (very old) and 'history' (the past) together signal that something belongs to the distant past, so a learner who knows both words can often infer that it refers to something old or no longer current. However, the conversational sense 'it's no longer important / it's finished' is a pragmatic extension beyond the literal combination and may not be fully predictable without exposure, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The idiom ancient history comes from the image of ancient things and history being so far in the past they are like objects in a museum that nobody cares about. That's why when people say something is ancient history, they mean it is 'something that used to matter but is now forgotten'.