yesteryear

• yester-year

Compound of yester- +‎ year.^[1]

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈjɛstəjɪə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈjɛstərjɪər/
• (General South African) IPA^(key): /ˈjestəjøː/
• (Wales, other regions) IPA^(key): /ˈjɛstəjɜː/

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yesteryear (countable and uncountable, plural yesteryears)

1. (poetic) Past years; time gone by; yore.
   • 1840 August 2, George H[enry] Calvert, Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. […], New York, N.Y.: Wiley and Putnam, published 1846, page 5:

     To be old here, is to be respectable, and time-honored is the epithet most coveted. You see no sign of the doings of yesterday or yesteryear: the new is careful of obtruding itself, and comes into the world under matronage of the old.

   • 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 5, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Gutenberg edition, [Florence, Italy]: [ […] Tipografia Giuntina, […]], →OCLC; republished as Lady Chatterley’s Lover (eBook no. 0100181h.html)‎^[1], Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, August 2011, archived from the original on 11 November 2020:

     It seems to me that it isn't these little acts and little connexions we make in our lives that matter so very much. They pass away, and where are they? Where…Where are the snows of yesteryear?

   • 1994 November 5, Ross Tieman, “Yachtsmen on a long-term voyage to recovery”, in The Times, number 65,104, London, page 25:

     Where Babcock has proprietary technologies, they will be preserved and developed, in so far as they help to give the company an edge over its rivals. But make no mistake, if Parker and Salmon have their way, boiler suits are the workwear of yesteryear at Babcock. Graduates, not grease-monkeys, are the typical employees of the future.

   • 2023 August 23, Pip Dunn, “The last bastion of the HST 'Castles'”, in RAIL, number 990, page 49:

     After passing Starcross and then the new […] Marsh Barton station, we soon arrive at the delightful Exeter St Davids station, which still retains much of its charm and GWR character of yesteryear.

2. (rare) Last year.

• (time gone by): foretime, yestertide; see also Thesaurus:the past

yesteryear (not comparable)

1. In past years.
   • 1917 April, Fullerton L[eonard] Waldo, “Embattled Serbia”, in The Forum, volume LVII, New York, N.Y.: The Forum Publishing Company […], section I, page 448:

     Was it yesteryear or centuries ago that the Orient Express thundered over that narrow, glistening channel and linked the Golden Horn to the Seine?

   • 1992, V. James Lovalvo, “Role Models of Righteousness in the Book of Mormon”, in James Van Treese, editor, Book of Mormon Reflections: “Truth in Perspective”, Salt Lake City, Ut.: Northwest Publishing Inc., →ISBN, section “General Moroni”, page 329:

     To believe in God was to Moroni’s credit. But to believe in the Son of God, a Being who had only been prophesied about and whose birth was still in the future, is truly remarkable. It is similar to those who lived yesteryear (and are living today) after the coming of Christ, who believed (and who do believe) in Him, although He has never been seen in person.

   • 2005, James Lazell, “Ways of Looking at Diversity”, in Island: Fact and Theory in Nature, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, section “Rarefaction”, page 13, column 2:

     What lives there today provides a clue as to what lived here yesteryear.

• yesterday
• bygone