Citations:before someone's time

English citations of before someone's time

Adjective: "(idiomatic) from before one was born or old enough to be aware of the world"

						1976	2005 2007 2008 2011
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• 1976 — Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Bantam (2003), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  The beatniks were before my time, and I never got anything outta the hippies but bad dope, clichés and the clap.

• 2005 — Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down, Jove Books (2005), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  Maybe some people used to have it, before my time—the Stones, the Clash, the Who.

• 2007 — Bobby Braddock, Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida, Louisiana State University Press (2007), →ISBN, page 55:

  At thirteen, I liked a lot of music that was before my time: Louis Armstrong and Dixieland jazz, Sousa marches, and barbershop quartet singing.

• 2008 — Christine Lynxwiler, Along Came a Cowboy, Barbour Publishing, Inc. (2008), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  "I don't guess you're a Beatles fan, are you?" Judy asks.

  I nod. "I definitely am. They were before my time, but I love most of their music. Why?"

• 2011 — Max Collins & Matthew Clemens, No One Will Hear You, Pinnacle Books (2011), →ISBN, page 27:

  "The Beatles? 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'?"

  Polk shrugged. "Before my time."

Adverb: "(idiomatic) at a stage in one's life, development, etc. that seems premature"

						1951	2005 2007 2011 2012
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• 1951 — Johnny Cash, letter to Vivian Cash dated 3 November 1951, reprinted in Vivian Cash (with Ann Sharpsteen), I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny, Scribner (2007), →ISBN, page 38:

  Oh yes, and tell her to take care of herself too, and not get herself all banged up again, or she will look old before her time.

• 2005 — Jill Briscoe, The New Normal: Living a Fear-Free Life in a Fear-Driven World, Multomah Publishers (2005), →ISBN, page 35:

  I had been around long enough to know a few people who had died before their time. The two-year-old down the street who died of leukemia, the teenage anorexic, the eighteen-year-olds in various wars and military forays around the globe, […]

• 2007 — Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Grave, Mira (2007), →ISBN, page 17:

  "I was afraid of this," he murmured. "The curse of the Greys, it is. All snatched before their time."

• 2007 — Robin Shannon, Cemeteries of Seattle, Arcadia Publishing (2007), →ISBN, page 119:

  Jimi Hendrix is buried at Evergreen Memorial Park in Renton. The electric guitar player extraordinaire died before his time at the young age of 27.

• 2011 — Alfreada Brown-Kelly, Why Women Weep, iUniverse (2011), →ISBN, page 60:

  She was 84-years-old, but I still feel like she was taken before her time.

• 2012 — Laura Frantz, Love's Reckoning, Revell (2012), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  "Unless you become the third apprentice to quit before his time?"

• 2012 — Diana Peterfreund, For Darkness Shows the Stars, Balzer + Bray (2012), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  "I don't think so. Your mother, I am sure, was taken before her time, but she was a grown woman. She had made a life, she had grown children in you and your sister. Sophia died so young — all of her potential was wasted."