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Time immemorial   /taɪm ˌɪməmˈɔriəl/   Listen
Time immemorial

noun
1.
The distant past beyond memory.  Synonym: time out of mind.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Time immemorial" Quotes from Famous Books



... with twenty people in the village, and they all agree that the 'Point' has been used by the public, as public property, from time immemorial." ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... despised me. At all events they treated me with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. I plied him with questions about the terrible village, and received extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been in existence from time immemorial—whence I concluded that it was at least a century old—and during that time no one had ever been known to escape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest the blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... inhabitants to be, as men, "only a little lower than the angels," that they should feel disposed, when urged by hunger, to help themselves to some of the cattle or sheep that had fattened on the green pastures kept clear for kangaroos from time immemorial by the fires of the natives and their forefathers; but such cases have been, nevertheless, of rare occurrence, partly because much human life has been sacrificed to the manes of sheep or cattle. No orders of the local government can prevent the perpetration of these ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... peerage, provided always that not more than four persons shall have seats in the House at one time as peers for life." Such an arrangement would have introduced a new practice, but not a new principle, since the annexation of a seat in the House of Lords to certain offices had existed from time immemorial in the case of the bishops. And the bill was carried in the House of Lords, but defeated in the Commons by a motion to refer it to a committee, which was adopted by a small majority, in a not very full House,[292] toward the end ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Such was, from time immemorial, the generally received opinion respecting the cause of dew; but it has been very recently proved by a course of ingenious experiments of Dr. Wells, that the deposition of dew is produced by the cooling of the surface of the earth, which ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... woolcomber—two professions which are often united. He is present at all solemnities, gay or grave, being essentially a man of erudition and a good speaker; and on these occasions he has always to act as spokesman, and to execute well and worthily certain formularies of speech, in use from time immemorial. His wandering profession, which introduces the man into so many family circles, without allowing him to fix himself in his own, naturally serves to render him talkative and amusing, a ready story-teller, and an able man ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... glanced at the electric lamps which shine just because combustion is impossible through their rigid exclusion of air. Then for a moment we paused to look at the plating baths which have developed themselves into a commanding rivalry with the blaze of the smelting furnace, with the flame which from time immemorial has filled the ladle of the founder and moulder. Thus methods that commenced in dismissing flame end boldly by dispossessing heat itself. But, it may be said, this usurping electricity usually finds its source, after all, in combustion under a steam-boiler. True, but mark the harnessing of ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... There are numberless extinct volcanoes in both Britain and France; there are some on the banks of the Rhine; indeed, they are thick-sown everywhere. Now, an extinct volcano is not quite so safe a neighbour as many may suppose. Vesuvius was an extinct volcano from time immemorial till the year 63, when it suddenly broke out again, and soon after destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum; since which time it has never again subsided into entire inactivity. Suppose Arthur's Seat, which is 'within a mile of Edinburgh town,' were to recommence business ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various

... pride of race, and it helped her just then, for it told her how impossible it was that she, a princess of the house of Braccio, should love a mere artist, the son of a steward, whose forefathers had been bondsmen to her ancestors from time immemorial. It was out of the question, and she would not believe it of herself. Yet, as she looked into his delicate, spiritual face and watched the shades of expression that crossed it, she felt that it made little difference whence he came, since she ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... the author undertakes more for the sake of his country than himself; and he rejoices that the demand for the present edition puts it in his power to aid in removing many absurd prejudices which have existed for time immemorial against his countrymen. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... rose-coloured silk walls where great silver sconces alternated with full-length portraits of British sovereigns, its white "chunam" columns and its gilt Italian furniture. "Chunam" has been used in India from time immemorial for decorative purposes. It is as white as snow and harder than any stone, and is, I believe, made from calcined shells. Let us suppose a Durbar held in this renovated throne-room for the official reception of a native Indian Prince. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... Deerfoot. At the same time the two Blackfeet trembled when they thought of what was almost certain to take place. Taggarak was a fierce heathen who would savagely resent any interference with the crude belief that had belonged to his people from time immemorial. A collision between him and Deerfoot, and perhaps with his companions, was among the certainties of the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... amongst the country towns. Taunton had long been famous not only for its own resources and for the spirit of its inhabitants, but also for the beautiful and highly cultivated country which spread around it, and gave rise to a gallant breed of yeomen. From time immemorial the town had been a rallying-point for the party of liberty, and for many years it had leaned to the side of Republicanism in politics and of Puritanism in religion. No place in the kingdom had fought more stoutly for the Parliament, and though it had ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... than those on the San Francisco Plateau. Some of the pueblo-building peoples yet remain. The Zuni Indians still occupy their homes, and they prove to be a most interesting people. They have cultivated the soil from time immemorial. They build their houses of stone and line them with plaster; and they have many interesting arts, being skilled potters and deft weavers. The seasons are about equally divided between labor, ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... the borough, which is of Kensington, but not in it, has belonged from time immemorial to Westminster (see same series, ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... blacksmiths, leather-makers and every known trade. If we keep this in mind when we speak of 'professional criminals' we shall realize what the term really means. It means that the members of a tribe whose ancestors were criminals from time immemorial are themselves destined by the use of the caste to commit crime, and their descendants will be offenders against the law till the whole tribe is exterminated or accounted for in the manner of the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... that they cannot be awakened; designed by nature, therefore, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. This cruel and wicked thing was said of Slavs; it is the same thing which has been said from time immemorial by the slave owners of their slaves. First they degrade human beings by denying them the opportunity to develop their better nature: no schools, no teaching, no freedom, no outlook; and then, as if in mockery, ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... only, as well as for the performance of all sorts of rural work in common. Canals were maintained, forests were cleared, trees were planted, and marshes were drained by the village communities from time immemorial; and the same continues still. Quite lately, in La Borne of Lozere barren hills were turned into rich gardens by communal work. "The soil was brought on men's backs; terraces were made and planted with chestnut trees, peach trees, and orchards, and water was brought for irrigation ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... pronounced a long oration of a very similar character, but going somewhat more into detail. He dwelt particularly upon the fierce, undying animosity with which the savages of the surrounding nations had regarded the presence of the Izreelites in the country from time immemorial, reminded his hearers of the state of almost perpetual warfare in which the nation had lived through the ages, and described the recent attack as the most virulent and determined that they had ever experienced, being nothing less than a carefully elaborated ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... existed from time immemorial, having arisen, not from any outside influence, but from the very nature of the local conditions. The three circumstances ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... and prayers were offered up through the intercession of the Mother of God, and of the glorious Apostle Mark. The two churches no longer used the same prayer-book. The Melchite church continued to use the old liturgy, which, as it had been read in Alexandria from time immemorial, was called the liturgy of St. Mark, altered however to declare that the Son was of the same substance with the Father. But the Koptic church made use of the newer liturgies by their own champions, Bishop Cyril, Basil of Caesarae, and Gregory ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... first case to be decided concerning the pardoning power, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Court, said: "As this power had been exercised from time immemorial by the executive of that nation whose language is our language, and to whose judicial institutions ours bear a close resemblance; we adopt their principles respecting the operation and effect of a pardon, and look into their books for the rules prescribing ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... letters, she seemed to feel, were not of her world, they were taking this man away from her. Yes, he could well believe she had the temper of a fiend. But she said nothing. Her mother had come of a race which from time immemorial had held its women in bondage, and she spoke no word, probably she had no words in which ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... the Willamettes had gathered on Wappatto Island, from time immemorial the council-ground of the tribes. The white man has changed its name to "Sauvie's" Island; but its wonderful beauty is unchangeable. Lying at the mouth of the Willamette River and extending for many miles down the Columbia, rich in wide meadows and crystal lakes, its interior dotted with ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... every year, which by degrees increases until it is sometimes twenty or thirty feet deep, if not more, and the lower portion becomes almost as hard as rock. The deposit is termed guano, and has, from time immemorial, been used by the Peruvians and Chilians as manure for the land; it is very powerful, as it contains most of the essential salts, such as ammonia, phosphates, etc., which are required for agriculture. Within these last few years samples have been brought to England, and as ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... private matter between them and their Maker, and then one doesn't mind so much; but they had been found out, and by Li Koo, their own servant. It was intolerable. All the blood of all the Twinklers, Junkers from time immemorial and properly sensitive to humiliation, surged within them. They hadn't felt so naughty and so young for years. They were sure Li Koo didn't believe them about the ditch. They had a dreadful sensation of being led back to ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... utility. The best athletic sports and games a composed of these racially old elements, so that phylogenetic muscular history is of great importance. Why is it, this writer asks, that a city man so loves to sit all day and fish! It is because this interest dates back to time immemorial. We are the sons of fishermen, and early life was by the water's side, and this is our food supply. This explains why certain exercises are more interesting than others. It is because they touch and revive the deep basic emotions of ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... and he could not afford to chance wasting ammunition on misses. At each shot a Wieroo dropped; and then the remaining two sought escape by flight, screaming and wailing after the manner of their kind. When a Wieroo runs, his wings spread almost without any volition upon his part, since from time immemorial he has always used them to balance himself and accelerate his running speed so that in the open they appear to skim the surface of the ground when in the act of running. But here in the woods, among the close-set ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... their requirements, and is content with the formal recognition of the spiritual supremacy of the church. This is most remarkably shown in their acknowledgment of the day on which offerings had been made from time immemorial by the pagan Lepchas to the genius of Kinchinjunga, by holding it as a festival of the church throughout Sikkim.* [On that occasion an invocation to the mountain is chanted by priests and people in chorus. Like the Lama's address ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... from time immemorial for the towns-boys to have a bonfire on the Square on the midnight before the Fourth. I didn't ask the Captain's leave to attend this ceremony, for I had a general idea that he wouldn't give it. If the Captain, I reasoned, doesn't ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... talk went on. It was never in the character and traditions of England to treat with an enemy in the hour of disaster. In its history treaties had, from time immemorial, followed upon victory, never upon defeat. It was therefore necessary as well as politic to grasp the full fruits of the brilliant success at Yorktown, and Washington, with the vigor which was one of the most striking traits of his well balanced nature, wished to carry its ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... dedicated to the Holy Cross by the Toltec nation in the city of Cholula. Near Tulansingo also, there is a cross engraved on a rock, with various characters, which the Indians by tradition attribute to the apostle Saint Thomas. In Oajaca also there existed a cross which the Indians from time immemorial had been accustomed to consider as a divine symbol. By order of the Bishop Cervantes, it was placed in a sumptuous chapel in the cathedral. Information concerning its discovery, together with a small cross cut ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... the province. But he was still more illustrious for his wealth and dignity: he had long filled the noble office of alderman, and was a man to whom the governor himself took off his hat. He had maintained possession of the leathern-bottomed chair from time immemorial; and had gradually waxed in bulk as he sat in his seat of government, until in the course of years he filled its whole magnitude. His word was decisive with his subjects; for he was so rich a man, that he was never expected to support any opinion ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... the Domicile?—In the third place, the matter of chosen domicile is now up for discussion or may be in the near future. The law from time immemorial has given the choice of residence of the family, wife as well as children, into the complete control of the husband and father. A woman may be "posted" in the public press as "leaving her husband's bed and ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... had come. With the negro the immunity, as far as it is the result of acclimatisation, implies exposure during a prodigious length of time; for the aborigines of tropical America who have resided there from time immemorial, are not exempt from yellow fever; and the Rev. H.B. Tristram states, that there are districts in Northern Africa which the native inhabitants are compelled annually to leave, though the negroes can remain ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... in China has, from time immemorial, been a hard one. Says a writer in the Westminster Review for October, 1855: "Of all nations, the Chinese carry out the system of early betrothal most completely; parents in China not only bargain for the marriage of their children during their infancy, ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... God. It would appear that for the amount of suffering it must endure, and in the face of its unconsulted coming, we should at least disregard God for his insolence, and impress upon the child the peculiar conditions of life. We should instruct it, that from time immemorial, Nature has been laboring through the most awkward process of reproduction, and has finally brought the child into existence, not to enjoy the benefits, or eat of the fruits of the earth, but to bear a life of continual strife and suffering. Not of God ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... locality beyond a sight of the country in travelling through on some journey. I know of no spot where all the little incidents mentioned in the poem would exactly fit in, and a few of the local allusions are evidently by a stranger. There is no 'minster'; the church at Halifax from time immemorial has always been known as the 'parish church,' and sometimes as the 'old church,' but has never been styled 'the minster.' The 'mountain roe,' which of course may be brought in as poetically illustrative, has not been seen on these hills for generations, and I scarcely think even the 'fawn at ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... and friends assembled from far and wide, was the great entertainment given at Headlong Hall from time immemorial, and it was on the morning after the ball that Miss Brindle-Mew Tabitha Ap-Headlong, the squire's maiden aunt, took her nephew aside, and told him it was time he was married if the family ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... France; and zealous always for the monarchy, the Catholic hierarchy indignantly spurned the overtures of a republic whose most cherished principle was atheism—which had abandoned the worship of God for the cult of Reason. "For God and the King" had been the priestly motto from time immemorial, and the new Republic repudiated obligation not to one only but to both. Accordingly, the vast influence of the Church was exerted on the side of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... had done his thinking, darkness had fallen, and, weary to the very bones, he threw himself on the bed beside the baby. The dog jumped up and laid himself at his feet, as if the place had been his from time immemorial—as it had perhaps been, according to time in dog-land. The many pleasures of that blessed day would have kept Clare awake had they not brought with them so much weariness. He fell fast asleep. Tommy had not had a happy day: he had been found out in evil-doing, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... Bakwains, who had shown themselves so friendly toward me, had been driven from Lepelole by the Barolongs, so that my prospects for the time of forming a settlement there were at an end. One of those periodical outbreaks of war, which seem to have occurred from time immemorial, for the possession of cattle, had burst forth in the land, and had so changed the relations of the tribes to each other that I was obliged to set out anew to look for a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... fairies and wonders quite as interesting as those of which we have spoken in these Lectures. While "A Flash of Lightning," "An Explosion in a Coal-mine," or "The Eruption of a Volcano," would bring us into the presence of terrible giants known and dreaded from time immemorial. ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... hundred years before the notion crept into the minds, even of the members of the British Parliaments, that they could make a new law. What they supposed they did, and what they were understood by the people to do, was merely to declare the law, as it was then and as it had been from time immemorial; the notion always being—and the farther back you go and the more simple the people are, the more they have that notion—that their free laws and customs were something which came from the beginning of the world, which ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... been striving mightily to hold its own against Wilton and had found its opponent so redoubtable that the tie score seemed to be fully as much as it deserved—and perhaps a little more—Jefferson, the big rival of Ridgley from time immemorial, had been winning the laurels. Jefferson had trampled mercilessly upon Goodrich Academy and with seeming ease had scored touchdown after touchdown. The final score was 34-0 and herein lay the menace for Ridgley: only a week before, Goodrich had defeated Wilton ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... the natural and controlling tendency of such power is to make its possessor cruel, oppressive, and revengeful towards those who are subjected to his control, is, we repeat, to set at nought the combined experience of the human race, to invalidate its testimony, and to reverse its decisions from time immemorial. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... January, 1790—New Year's Day, from time immemorial the beggars' holiday, when they swarmed in the streets, expecting everyone to give—the commissioned and non-commissioned officers of three regiments of infantry were distributed early in the morning ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... are now introduced to the first principles of Freemasonry, I congratulate you on being accepted into this ancient and honorable Fraternity. Ancient, as having existed from time immemorial; and honorable, as tending in every particular so to render all men who will be comformable to its precepts. No institution was ever raised on a better principle or more solid foundation; nor were ever more excellent rules and ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh

... Atahualpa, to whom he left this kingdom on his death, which happened about 1529. His eldest son Huascar, whose mother was descended from the incas, had the remainder of his states. But this partition, so contrary to the customs established from time immemorial, caused such great discontent at Cuzco, that Huascar, encouraged by his subjects, determined to march against his brother, who would not acknowledge him for his lord and master. Atahualpa, in his turn, had too lately tasted power to be willing to abandon it. He managed by bribes to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... Kotzebue street, and when he took his morning stroll in the Cracow Faubourg he passed under the shadow of a palace flying the Russian flag, which palace was his, and had belonged to his ancestors from time immemorial. He had once made the journey to St. Petersburg to see in the great museum there the portraits of his fathers, the books that his predecessors had collected, the relics of Poland's greatness, which were his, and the greatness ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... the Peruvian quipos, but they are inconveniently large for that use. They are not unlike the beads Belzoni found in the mummy pits in Egypt, and they closely resemble some of the many kinds of beads with which the Bramins have counted their muntras time immemorial. The Oriental custom of dropping a bead for every prayer having been adopted by the Christians of the west, and still continuing in Roman Catholic countries, appears, on that account, too common to deserve the notice of a philosophical traveller; ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... Lindley combats very eagerly the doctrine that varieties of the apple and pear, or indeed of any tree, die naturally of old age; but the only incontrovertible fact which he adduces in support of his argument, is the existence of the French White Beurre pear, which has flourished from time immemorial. His denial of the decay of the Golden Pippin, the Golden {437} Harvey, and the Nonpareil, will not, I think, be allowed to be just by the experience of your readers; the existence of the last-named apple for three centuries, supposing it to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... resolved to grapple boldly with the ever-recurring danger from the Tartars, Under different names, but ever with the same object, the tribes of the vast region from Corea to Koko Nor had been a trouble to the Chinese agriculturist and government from time immemorial. Their sole ambition and object in life had been to harry the lands of the Chinese, and to bear back to their camps the spoils of cities. The Huns had disappeared, but in their place had sprung up the great power of the Toukinei or Turks, who ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... from Germany is good authority, because the trial by jury was in use, in the northern nations of Europe generally, long before Magna Carta, and probably from time immemorial; and the Saxons and Normans were familiar with it before ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... "a point of honour not to contaminate their blood." The theory is at all events striking. We have a "White Australia policy" on the mainland to-day; this speculation assumes a kind of "Black Australasia policy" on the part of certain families of islanders from time immemorial. ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... upstart, anyway, to come setting signs and marks in the land that had been theirs from time immemorial? What mattered the little copper-coloured badge on his breast? What mattered it that he was beginning to send out word of his desire to work with and for the cattlemen of Lost Valley, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... valley of the Nile both before and since. The very district of Goshen in which they settled was occupied again, shortly after their desertion of it, by nomads from Edom who had besought the Pharaoh for meadow-land on which to feed their flocks. The need of pasturage from time immemorial has urged the pastoral tribes of the desert towards the fertile land of the Nile. When want of rain has brought drought upon Canaan, parching the grass and destroying the corn, the nomad has invariably set his face toward the country which is dependent for its fertility, not upon ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... general characteristic of reformers. Almost without debate, certainly without adequate consideration, the conference adopted a recommendation that astronomers and navigators should change their system of reckoning time. Both these classes have, from time immemorial, begun the day at noon, because this system was most natural and convenient, when the question was not that of a measure of time for daily life, but simply to indicate with mathematical precision the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... mutton, but he collapsed ignominiously under the concentrated stare of righteous indignation with which his heterodox suggestion was received. Goose versus pork is eagerly debated. As regards quantity the question is a level one, since the allowance from time immemorial has been a goose or a leg ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... unfledged project—and are alike enchanted with the velocipedes or the French Revolution. One set, wrapped up in impenetrable forms and technical traditions, are deaf to everything that has not been dinned in their ears, and in those of their forefathers, from time immemorial: their hearing is thick with the same old saws, the same unmeaning form of words, everlastingly repeated: the others pique themselves on a jargon of their own, a Babylonish dialect, crude, unconcocted, harsh, discordant, to which it is impossible for any one ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... administrator of the rights and usages of this glorious monastery. Although I may, indeed, liberate this girl and her heirs, I owe an account to God and to the abbey. Now, since there has been here an altar, serfs and monks, id est, from time immemorial, never has there been an instance of a burgess becoming the property of the abbey by marriage with a serf. Hence, need there is of exercising this right, that it may not be lost, effete and obsolete, and fall into desuetude, the which ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... Serjeant Wiltshire, who was the leader on the other side. He rose instantly and replied to this purpose: "The prisoner is misinformed. The truth is, that from time immemorial, and down to the other day, a person indicted for a capital offence was never allowed counsel at all, except to matters of law, and these must be started by himself. By recent practice the rule hath been so far relaxed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... most remarkable and instructive to observe, that none of these races can be shown to have been originated by the action of changes in what are commonly called external circumstances, upon the wild rock-pigeon. On the contrary, from time immemorial, pigeon-fanciers have had essentially similar methods of treating their pets, which have been housed, fed, protected and cared for in much the same way in all pigeonries. In fact, there is no case better adapted than that of the pigeons to refute the doctrine ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... amphibian?" said the toad. He came from the centre of a grass-tuft, and spoke with solemn deliberation. "Not one of you is more persecuted than I. From time immemorial I have been the loadstone of credulity, and—I am altogether defenceless. I am never worth eating, for the shock of capture opens every pore on my skin, drenching me with what the poets class as venom. So I ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... time immemorial, has been ruled by one of their own body, periodically elected, who is dignified with the title of Mayor, regulates the community according to their own peculiar laws and customs, and settles all their fishery disputes. His decisions are so decisive and so much respected that the parties are seldom ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... general terms, the beauty of Mary Stuart and La Reine Margot. "You seem to have seen them all," said Madame de Pompadour, laughing. "Sometimes," said Saint-Germain, "I amuse myself, not by making people believe, but by letting them believe, that I have lived from time immemorial." "But you do not tell us your age, and you give yourself out as very old. Madame de Gergy, who was wife of the French ambassador at Venice fifty years ago, I think, says that she knew you there, and that you are not changed in the least." "It is true, madame, that ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... he explained suavely, "that it was built by my grandfather, and that we have had rights over the whole of the foreshore here from time immemorial. I know quite well that my brother gave it to your father—or rather he sold it to him for a nominal sum. I must tell you that it was a most complicated transaction. He had the greatest difficulty in ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... But you have been received into one of the oldest and richest families in the country, and you owe some respect to its traditions. Generation after generation, from time immemorial, the heads of our family have been lords of the manor—not office seekers or fortune hunters. The honourable offices I have held have all been offered to me and not sought by me; and I am not going to have you chattering about your university degree ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... have been truth in the allegation; at least the hangman of Inverness enjoyed, from time immemorial, a similar perquisite,—a peat out of every creel brought ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... instance, the Clarion. We had had but that one newspaper in our town from time immemorial. I suppose it might have been a fairly good county paper once,—but for some years it had spluttered so feebly that one wondered how it survived at all. In spite of this, nobody in our county could get himself decently born or married, or buried, without a due and proper ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... is a wide difference as regards the relations of the sexes in different parts of the world. In some parts polygamy has prevailed from time immemorial. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... the Phoenicians was thus sinking in the land of their choice, just as it had long ago succumbed in their original home, a new state grew up by their side. The northern coast of Africa has been inhabited from time immemorial, and is inhabited still, by the people, who themselves assume the name of Shilah or Tamazigt, whom the Greeks and Romans call Nomades or Numidians, i. e. the "pastoral" people, and the Arabs call Berbers, although they also at times designate them as "shepherds" (Shawie), ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Java, there is a large native population and the struggle for existence has compelled the natives to adopt habits of industry, the presence of the Chinaman is not a necessity, but in a country like Borneo, where the inhabitants, from time immemorial, except during unusual periods of drought or epidemic sickness, have never found the problem of existence bear hard upon them, it is impossible to impress upon the natives that they ought to have "wants," whether they feel them or not, ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... gold supply of the modern world have been, first, South America, Transylvania in Europe, Siberia in Asia, California in North America, and Australia. Africa has always produced gold from time immemorial. ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... men bore the strong short bow that had been in use among them from time immemorial, and these could be made out by the thick quiver they had slung over their backs. But, generally speaking, each Indian carried a good serviceable rifle, pieces of which ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... the sea.' Are there harbours? 'Excellent.' And is the surrounding country self-supporting? 'Almost.' Any neighbouring states? 'No; and that is the reason for choosing the place, which has been deserted from time immemorial.' And is there a fair proportion of hill and plain and wood? 'Like Crete in general, more hill than plain.' Then there is some hope for your citizens; had the city been on the sea, and dependent for support on other countries, no human power could have preserved you from corruption. Even ...
— Laws • Plato

... that people only want to know what the new army needs, and it will be gladly and cheerfully given. The army needs music, its own music, for, more than in any other calling, soldiers do not live by bread alone. From time immemorial the man who offers his life for his land has been compassed at every turn of his service with elaborate ceremonial and observance, of which music is no small part, all carefully designed to support and uphold him. It is not seemly and it is not expedient that ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... something objectionable in most of the great writers of antiquity. Horace, Lucretius, Terence, Catullus, Juvenal,—in each there is one quality or another definitely repulsive to a reader who is determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. From time immemorial, however, it has been recognized in the Christian church that this objection does not apply to Virgil. He is the most evangelical of the classics; he is the one who can be enjoyed with least to explain away and least to excuse. One evening my Father took down his Virgil from ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... right to make a sacrifice of her. She would begin to defend her father: by a pious fiction she would pretend that it was not her father who was forcing her to stay, but she herself who could not bear to leave him.—And, up to a point, what she said was true. It seemed to have been accepted from time immemorial by herself, and her fatter, and all their friends that their life had to be thus and thus, and not otherwise. She had a married brother, who thought it quite natural that she should devote her life to their father in his stead. He was entirely wrapped up ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... the policy of Japan from time immemorial, and which was somewhat roughly intruded upon by Captain Perry, and subsequently by other explorers and diplomatists, has given place to a change which amounts to a revolution. Japan, under the name of Zipango, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... arisen as to the original breed of British cattle. The battle has been sharply fought between the advocates of the middle and of the long-horns. The short-horns and the polls are out of the lists; the latter, although it has existed in certain districts from time immemorial, being probably an accidental variety. The weight of argument appears at present to rest with the middle horns; the long-horns being ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... history of creation is not to be wondered at, for the greater number of the religious beliefs of the Babylonians are grouped round them. Moreover, the science of astronomy had gone hand in hand with the superstition of astrology in Mesopotamia from time immemorial; and at a very early period the oldest gods of Babylonia were associated with the heavenly bodies. Thus the Annunaki and the Igigi, who are bodies of deified spirits, were identified with the stars of the northern and southern heaven, respectively. And ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum

... smiled. She was learning to know Miss Hobart. After the experience of the morning, she felt these summonses might be followed by a declaration of war. Her position in regard to overseeing examinations was more distasteful to her than it could possibly be to any of the students. But from time immemorial such had been the custom of most schools. There must have been a reason for it. No doubt, it had been forced upon the instructors by the attitude of the students themselves. New conditions may have arisen, but the old law ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... had neither means nor power of oppressing his subjects, whose rights and privileges were as strictly defined as his own. In a country then, where every man followed the profession of his father, and where from time immemorial everything had proceeded on precisely the same lines, the fact that Ameres, the son of the high priest of Osiris, and himself destined to succeed to that dignity, should entertain opinions differing even in the slightest from those held ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... be broken, unless Fate should bring other men to Opar. Before Tarzan came upon his first visit, La had had no thought that such men as he existed, for she knew only her hideous little priests and the bulls of the tribe of great anthropoids that had dwelt from time immemorial in and about Opar, until they had come to be looked upon almost as equals by the Oparians. Among the legends of Opar were tales of godlike men of the olden time and of black men who had come more recently; but these latter had been enemies who killed and ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... should not make any serious decision without having consulted her; that, in short, she should at the same time attend to her husband's clothes and aid him in governing the empire. For so had done from time immemorial all the great ladies of the aristocracy, mindful of their good repute and the prosperity of their families. And Livia must have tried the more earnestly to fulfil all that her education had taught her to consider a sacred duty, since to a woman ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... open house to all comers until after the New Year, and in this way Christmas had been kept up in that part of Devonshire from time immemorial. ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... had not lived in the land since time immemorial, like the black rats, but descended from a couple of poor immigrants who landed in Malmoe from a Libyan sloop about a hundred years ago. They were homeless, starved-out wretches who stuck close to the harbour, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... From time immemorial the School had attended Giggleswick Parish Church for services on Sunday, and during this period two pews, one for the Headmaster and one for the Second Master, were set apart immediately on the North and South sides of the Communion ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... Obesity.—From time immemorial fat men and women have been the object of curiosity and the number who have exhibited themselves is incalculable. Nearly every circus and dime museum has its example, and some of the most famous have in this way been ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... to be a narrow crack through this cliff which had guarded the river of ice. It had never been used by man as a right of way, but the beasts of the wilderness had used it from time immemorial, as the marks along the ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... are much more ancient than those of excise. They seem to have been called customs, as denoting customary payments, which had been in use for time immemorial. They appear to have been originally considered as taxes upon the profits of merchants. During the barbarous times of feudal anarchy, merchants, like all the other inhabitants of burghs, were considered as little better than emancipated ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... a good mind to have Mr. Sisson tried by a court-martial, in order to clear my own character for punctuality. It is time immemorial since he promised me the machine and the drawing in six weeks. After above half of time immemorial was elapsed, he came and begged for ten guineas. Your brother and I called one another to a council of war, and at last gave it him nemine contradicente. The moment ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... not a question of discussing if it be right to establish it, but of seeing if it is established, and if it forms part of the laws of the country, and of deciding if a loyal subject is not within his rights in upholding both the powers of his king and the limits which have from time immemorial been set to that power. The power of the clergy is dangerous in a republic, but convenient in a monarchy, and especially in a monarchy tending to despotism. Where would Spain and Portugal be, since they have lost ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... native of China, where its leaves have from time immemorial furnished food for silkworms; extensively introduced and naturalized in India and central and southern Europe; introduced likewise into the United States and Canada from Ontario to Florida; occasionally spontaneous near dwellings, ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame

... Jennie was thus unduly thrust forth was that in which virtue has always vainly struggled since time immemorial; for virtue is the wishing well and the doing well unto others. Virtue is that quality of generosity which offers itself willingly for another's service, and, being this, it is held by society to be nearly worthless. Sell yourself cheaply and you shall be used ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... celestial motions,—a circumstance to which it owes its unalterable uniformity. Although it did not enter into the calendar of the Greeks, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodosius, it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all eastern countries; and as it forms neither an aliquot part of the year nor of the lunar month, those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss, as Delambre remarks, to assign it to an origin having much ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... fourteenth century before Christ"; and of the Ramayana, that it tells the story of nations that flourished in Northern India about a thousand years B. C.—Is believed by whom, pray? It is also believed, and has been from time immemorial, in India, that Krishna, who figures largely in the Mahabharata, died in the year 3102 B.C.; and that he was the eighth avatar of Vishnu; and that Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, was the seventh. Now ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... been the palace of some rich citizen of the republic in days of yore, but which had now fallen into dishonoured old age. Its windows and outside shutters were tightly closed, and had been so, apparently, from time immemorial; a vile smell of rancid oil and garlic pervaded it in every part; the cornices of its huge, bare rooms were festooned with blackened cobwebs, and the dust and dirt of ages had been suffered to accumulate upon the stone floors of its corridors. The signorina tucked up her ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... the rest of a shy man's troubles are always very amusing to other people, and have afforded material for comic writing from time immemorial. But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... English, and when the latter claimed that much of it was theirs by a possession of more than eighty years, and that this possession gave them a title, the Indians replied, "We were in possession before you, for we have held it from time immemorial." The English delegates conceded that they did not claim beyond the west bank of the Narantsouak (Kennebec), and that the fort at St. George was built not by them, but by ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder

... Asiatics have, time immemorial, considered women as little better than slaves, this opinion probably originated among them. The Mahometans, both in Asia and Europe, are said, by a great variety of writers, to ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... Champlain. Ever since the white man came, hostile forces had been going north or south along well-defined passes in these regions, and, doubtless, bands of Indians had been traveling the same course from time immemorial; so it was not hard for them to come upon the traces of French and Indians going to Quebec to make the great stand ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... started purposely to see the Ghetto, and for this reason it had that purely incidental relish, which is the keenest possible savor of the object of interest. We were on an expedition to find Sior Antonio Rioba, who has been, from time immemorial, the means of ponderous practical jokes in Venice. Sior Antonio is a rough-hewn statue set in the corner of an ordinary grocery, near the Ghetto. He has a pack on his back and a staff in his hand; his face is painted, and is habitually dishonored with dirt thrown upon it by boys. On the wall ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... back to the great battle at Crayford, where Horsa was killed. Another kind of local tradition is perhaps more instructive. Immediately contiguous to the north side of the Roman road at Litlington, near Royston, were some strips of unenclosed, but cultivated, land, which in ancient deeds from time immemorial had been called "Heaven's Walls." Traditional awe attached to this spot, and the village children were afraid to traverse it after dark, when it was said to be frequented by supernatural beings. Here is subject for inquiry. Both words in the name are significant. Why the allusion to Heaven; why ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... Sea has, almost from time immemorial, greatly suffered from the depredations of Arab pirates, who infest the entire coasts. The exploits of one individual is dwelt upon by his late confreres with particular enthusiasm; and his career and deeds were of so extraordinary a character, that we feel justified in giving the following ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... a slave from time immemorial. This is shown from the earliest Egyptian monuments, paintings, and traditions. Herodotus, the father of Grecian History, tells us of negro slavery in Ancient Greece. It existed in Rome also. During the tenth century of the Christian era, the Moors, from ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit

... two hundred acres in extent is situated to the west of the town, over which the inhabitants from time immemorial exercised a right of pasturage. A Process of Division was raised before the Court of Session in 1808 by the Honourable Basil Cochrane, then proprietor of the Barony. This process was wakened in ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... captured with the sunshine-food-air weapons, and a glorious victory it was,—great in itself, and even more important for its moral effect and its encouragement for the future. To pronounce an illness "consumption" had been from time immemorial equivalent to signing a death-warrant. Even the doctors could hardly believe it, when the first open-air enthusiasts began to claim that they had actually cured cases of genuine consumption. For long there was a tendency to mutter ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... With the establishment of the rabbinical seminaries in Zhitomir (1848), this former centre of Hasidism became the nursery of Haskalah. The movement was especially strong in Vilna, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," as Napoleon is said to have called it. From time immemorial, long before the Gaon's day, it had been famous for its Talmudic scholars. "Its yeshibot," says Jacob Emden in the middle of the eighteenth century, "were closed neither by day nor by night; many scholars came ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... time immemorial been under the special supervision of the proprietors of Riverton Park, the whole hamlet being a portion of the property. The parish to which it belonged was extensive, and the parish church some five miles distant, Bridgepath being just on the borders of the next ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson

... caused himself to be acknowledged as King of Scotland, destroyed the old Scottish charters, and transported to Westminster the Scottish crown and sceptre, together with the stone from Scone Abbey, on which, from time immemorial, the Kings of Scotland had been placed when crowned and anointed. All the castles were delivered up into his hands, and every noble in his dominions gave him the oath of allegiance, excepting one, William, Lord Douglas, who steadily refused, and was therefore carried off a prisoner to England, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... plentiful on the north-western coasts of Australia, planted, no doubt, by Malay fishermen in search of trepang, who from time immemorial frequented those shores.] ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge

... the glories of France; every park around, every little palace was infinitely associated with its sovereigns; and here, in the midst of these memorials, the German invaders stalked carelessly, drank in the cafes, or feasted in the hotels, as if the place had belonged to them from time immemorial. Afar off, in the quiet of the evening, could be heard the distant boom of the guns ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... she liked, and she left unknown those whom she did not like. Here in Harmouth her peculiar art or instinct of selection earned for her, as Kitty Palliser had lately told her, the character of exclusiveness. This, by the way was family tradition again. From time immemorial there had been a certain well-recognized distance between Court House and the little Georgian town. And when Harmouth was discovered by a stock-broker and became a watering-place, and people began to talk about Harmouth society, Court House remained innocently ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... vote money for this purpose? I cannot hesitate; and I place it at once under the sanction of that commanding charity proclaimed by prophets and enjoined by apostles, which all history recognizes and which the Constitution cannot impair. From time immemorial every government has undertaken to ransom its subjects from captivity,—and sometimes a whole people has felt its resources well bestowed in the ransom of its prince. Religion and humanity have both concurred in this ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... which governed it gained the supremacy. The Mongol khans are traced up to the old royal race of the Turks, who from a very early period were masters of the Mongolian desert and its borderland. Here from time immemorial the Mongols "had made their home, leading a miserable nomadic life in the midst of a wild and barren country, unrecognized by their neighbors, and their very name unknown centuries after their kinsmen, the Turks, had been exercising an all-powerful influence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... luck enough! luck enough to repay me for all the past!" Be it as it may, from time immemorial the place ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... despairing eyes around upon the circle of strangers. During a pause in her paroxysms she seemed to recollect herself. And then she began to sing. She sang her sorrow in a rhythm which rose and fell continually, like the palpitation of a heart. It was the ancient monody which from time immemorial, in the land of the Abruzzi, the women have sung over the remains of their relatives. It was the melodious eloquence of sacred sorrow, which renewed spontaneously, in the profundity of her being, this hereditary rhythm in which the mothers of bygone ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... from time immemorial given flavor to man's diet. "Leeks and garlic," "anise and cumin," "salt and pepper," "curry and bean cheese," are built into the very life of a people. The more variety of natural foods we have the less dependent we are upon such things. Our modern cooks, confronted ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose

... where, as he had learned from Diodorus (i. 49—iii 12) and from the papyri, the precious metals had been extensively worked. The "Wells of Hama'ma't" lie between Keneh on the Nile and Kusayr (Cosseir) on the Red Sea; and the land is held by the Ababdah Arabs, who have taken charge, from time immemorial, of the rich commercial caravans. The formation of the country much resembles that of Midian; and the metalliferous veins run from northeast to south-west. In Arabia, however, the filons are of unusual size; in Africa they are small, the terminating fibrils, as it were, of the Asiatic focus; ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... that the late Lord Clive constantly asserted that the salt trade in Bengal had been a monopoly time immemorial,—that it ever was and ever must be a monopoly,—and that Coja Wazid, and other merchants long before him, had given to the Nabob and his ministers two hundred thousand pounds per annum for the exclusive privilege. The Directors, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke



Words linked to "Time immemorial" :   time out of mind, past, yesteryear, past times



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