month of Sundays
- idiom
- Informal
:
una eternidad
- Why, I haven't seen her in a month of Sundays.
Examples
-
It will take a month of Sundays to finish this project if we keep working at this pace.
-
Now we know surely could never in a month of Sundays have guessed who that woman is, were it not that she's identified by an inscription beneath her feet.
-
This script is the best thing I have read in a month of Sundays.
-
I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN A MONTH OF SUNDAYS.
-
I haven't gone to the beach in a month of Sundays, and it feels like forever.
-
She said she would only believe it after a month of Sundays had passed.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A period that lasts much longer than usual
1
9.8
A very long time that seems not likely to end
For a very long time or in a very complete way
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
month + of + Sundays
The phrase is a hyperbolic idiom whose meaning ('a very long time') cannot be straightforwardly derived from the literal words 'month', 'of', and 'Sundays'. Although there is a loose metaphorical idea (many Sundays implying length), the construction is idiomatic and not a compositional, predictable combination, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words is unlikely to infer the correct meaning reliably.
Etymology
Month of Sundays comes from the image of a month made only of Sundays: because Sundays come once a week, a 'month' of them would take many weeks and feel very long. That's why people use it to mean 'a very long time'.