• bygone •
Pronunciation: bai-gawn • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Temporarily gone by, chronologically passed, past, implying outmoded, old fashioned.
Notes: Today's is a word used in so few familiar phrases, like 'bygone days' and 'bygone years' that we seem to have forgotten it is an active word. It is a lexical orphan but may be used as a noun, as in the familiar phrase 'let bygones be bygones'. But the noun usage is still alive (see In Play).
In Play: Although in all the familiar phrases this adjective modifies a time noun, other nouns are still possible: "Wiley Driver's car is such a bygone model that he can't find parts for it." Even the noun usage allows nontemporal references: "Maude Lynn Dresser is as much a bygone as her bygone wardrobe."
Word History: Today's Good Word is rather obviously a compound composed of by "past (something)" + gone, the past participle of go. By seems to have come from a Germanic clipping of PIE ambhi "on both sides, around", which also shows up as German bei "at, with" and Dutch bij "near, during, at". English go goes back to PIE gheh-/ghoh- "to leave, go, walk", source also of Sanskrit jahati "leaves" and Greek reduplicative kikhanein "to reach, find", but both PIE words seem to have taken up housekeeping in the Germanic languages, German gehen "to go", Dutch gaan "to go", and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish gå "to go" are all the traces of it we find.
