Forms: 4–5 agoon, 5–6 agon, 6– agone; also 4–6 agoo, 6–7 agoe, 4– ago. [pa. pple. of the preceding vb., used as adj. qualifying some noun of time, expressed or understood; in the latter case always preceded by long = long time. The full form agone had been contracted to ago in some dialects long before this usage began, in end of 14th c.; ago became the ordinary prose form from Caxton, but agone has remained dialectally, and as an archaic and poetic variant to the present day.]
A. ppl. adj. Gone by; by-gone; past. (Now always follows its noun.)
c. 1314. Guy Warw., 58. For it was ago fif yer That he was last ther.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Wife’s T., 7 (Lansd.). I speke of mony a hundred ȝere a-go.
1388. Wyclif, Gen. xxi. 2. As ȝistirdai, and the thridde dai agoon.
c. 1450. Knt. de la Tour, 158. It is not yet longe tyme agoo that suche custume was vsed.
1528. More, Heresyes, II. Wks. 1557, 179/2. Nowe quite gone manye yeares a goo.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., V. i. 204. O he’s drunke, sir Toby, an houre agone.
1611. Bible, 1 Sam. xxx. 13. Three dayes agone I fell sicke.
1718. Free-thinker, No. 61, 42. Some Years agoe they were remarkable for the narrowest Hats in the Kingdom.
a. 1849. Hor. Smith, Addr. Mummy, i.
| And hast thou walk’d about, (how strange a story!) | |
| In Thebes’s streets three thousand years ago. |
1846. Hawthorne, Mosses, I. iv. 70. And that’s full fifteen minutes agone.
B. adv. in Long ago: a long while ago, in time long gone, long since. Chaucer has also yore ago.
c. 1366. Chaucer, Compl. Pity, 1. Pite that I haue sought so yore agoo.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVIII. 271. I þis lord knowe, it is longe ago I knewe him.
1417. Clifford, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 29, I. 90. It liked to youre seyd Hyghnesse not longe agon to wryte to me.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Paraphr., Matt. xvi. 2. Ye would haue beleued me long agon.
1633. Ford, Broken Heart, III. v. (1839), 63. ’Tis long agone since first I lost my heart.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Loom & Lugger, I. v. 89. Dead and gone long ago.
¶ Corrupt form. See A prep.2
c. 1538. Starkey, England, 88. Not many yerys of-goo.
