immemorial

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: im=me=mo=ri=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

immemorial, a. [Pref. im- not + memorial: cf. F. immémorial.].

 Extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition; indefinitely ancient; as, existing from time immemorial.  [1913 Webster]

Time immemorial (Eng. Law.), a time antedating (legal) history, and beyond “legal memory” so called; formerly an indefinite time, but in 1276 this time was fixed by statute as the begining of the reign of Richard I. (1189). Proof of unbroken possession or use of any right since that date made it unnecessary to establish the original grant. In 1832 the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned and the principle substituted that rights which had been enjoyed for full twenty years (or as against the crown thirty years) should not be liable to impeachment merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

immemorial, adj.
1 ancient beyond memory or record.
2 very old.

Derivative

immemorially adv.

Etymology

med.L immemorialis (as IN-(1), MEMORIAL)

THESAURUS

immemorial

acknowledged, admitted, age-old, ageless, ancient, antique, auld, ceaseless, coeternal, constant, continual, continuous, conventional, customary, dateless, early, elderly, endless, erstwhile, established, eternal, eterne, ever-being, ever-durable, ever-during, everlasting, everliving, fixed, folk, fore, former, hallowed, handed down, heroic, hoary, incessant, indestructible, infinite, interminable, inveterate, late, legendary, long-established, long-standing, mythological, never-ceasing, never-ending, nonstop, nonterminating, nonterminous, of long standing, of old, of the folk, of yore, olamic, old, old as Methuselah, old as history, old as time, old-time, olden, once, onetime, oral, past, perdurable, permanent, perpetual, prehistoric, prescriptive, previous, primeval, primitive, prior, quondam, received, recent, recognized, rooted, sempiternal, sometime, steady, then, time-honored, timeless, traditional, tried and true, true-blue, unceasing, understood, unending, unintermitting, uninterrupted, unremitting, unwritten, venerable, without end, worshipful

ROGET THESAURUS

immemorial

Oldness

N oldness, age, antiquity, cobwebs of antiquity, maturity, decline, decay, senility, seniority, eldership, primogeniture, archaism, thing of the past, relic of the past, megatherium, Sanskrit, tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law, old, ancient, antique, of long standing, time-honored, venerable, elder, eldest, firstborn, prime, primitive, primeval, primigenous, paleolontological, paleontologic, paleoanthropological, paleoanthropic, paleolithic, primordial, primordinate, aboriginal, diluvian, antediluvian, protohistoric, prehistoric, antebellum, colonial, precolumbian, patriarchal, preadamite, paleocrystic, fossil, paleozoolical, paleozoic, preglacial, antemundane, archaic, classic, medieval, Pre-Raphaelite, ancestral, black-letter, immemorial, traditional, prescriptive, customary, whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contr, inveterate, rooted, antiquated, of other times, rococo, of the old school, after-age, obsolete, out of date, out of fashion, out of it, stale, old-fashioned, behind the age, old-world, exploded, gone out, gone by, passe, run out, senile, time worn, crumbling, secondhand, old as the hills, old as Methuselah, old as Adam, old as history, Archeozoic, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Paleogene, Neocene, Quaternary, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent, since the world was made, since the year one, since the days of Methuselah, vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.