ago

«ago» in Mova's school dictionary: before now, back in the past: «two years ago» — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adverb

meaning for a pupil

Ago means before now, back in the past: «two years ago». tree →

sense in the lessons

so many years back from now: «N years ago» takes N away from the age now; in history and science, dinosaurs lived millions of years ago; phrases: «years ago», «long ago», «a while ago», «not long ago», «how long ago»

examples

• How old was Tom 2 years ago? tree →
• 3 years ago Mia was 5. How old is she now? tree →
• Ben planted a tree 4 years ago. tree →
• Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. tree →
• We moved here a long time ago. tree →
• Long ago, people had no electricity. tree →
• The bus left five minutes ago. tree →
• How long ago did you lose your tooth? tree →

note

«ago» comes after the time: «3 years ago», not «ago 3 years». «N years ago» takes N away from the age now; trap: to get the age now from an age N years ago, add N.

In the corpora

• A person with dementia may mix up names or think it is years ago; correcting them sharply can upset them.
• Nearly 2000 years ago a volcano buried a Roman town and burned a library of scrolls to black lumps that nobody could open.
• Italian artists worked out the rules of perspective about 600 years ago.
• In Aesop's fable from ancient Greece, about 2500 years ago, a little mouse saves a lion by gnawing through a net.
• The ancestors of elephants, around 55 million years ago, were pig-sized animals with no trunk.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «ago» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.