donkey's years

donkey's years

noun Informal.
a very long time; eons.

Origin:
1895–1900; probably orig. donkey('s) ears, as rhyming slang for years, with years replacing ears once rhyming orig. was forgotten

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World English Dictionary
donkey's years
 
n
informal a long time

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Donkey's years is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Slang Dictionary

donkey's years definition


  1. n.
    a long time. (From British colloquial.) : I haven't seen you in donkey's years.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

donkey's years

A long time, as in I haven't seen her in donkey's years. This expression punningly alludes to the considerable length of the animal's ears. [Early 1900s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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