good old days

English

Etymology

Blend of good old +‎ old days.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

good old days pl (plural only)

1. A period of time in the distant past when things were better or fondly remembered.

   In the good old days we could go to the gasworks and buy coke.

   • 1991, “Learning to Fly”, in Into the Great Wide Open, performed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers:

     Well, the good old days may not return / And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn

   • 2023 October 14, HarryBlank, “Face Time”, in SCP Foundation‎^[1], archived from the original on 23 May 2024:

     "He's been waiting to jump my brain-bones since I left R&E. I could feel him hammering on the door." She trotted to the nearest wall and knocked on it for emphasis. "But whatever it is that makes us remember the good old days, it also makes us impossible to possess now. That's why Willie and I both woke up, and why Noè never got taken out by Mukami. So all I had to do was open my mind up to the guy, invite him in, then... gas the foyer, as it were."

Synonyms

• golden age
• heyday

Antonyms

• bad old days

Related terms

• back in the day

Translations

the past, seen as a time when things were better

• Arabic: الزَّمَن الجَمِيل (az-zaman al-jamīl)
• Finnish: vanhat hyvät ajat pl
• French: bon vieux temps (fr)
• Hungarian: régi szép idők
• Russian: ста́рые до́брые времена́ n pl (stáryje dóbryje vremená)
• Spanish: el año catapum m