(g, gn)  Forms: 4-5 agoon, 5-6 agon, 6- agone; also 4-6 agoo, 6-7 agoe, 4- ago. [pa. pple. of the preceding vb., used as adj. qualifying some noun of time, expressed or understood; in the latter case always preceded by long = long time. The full form agone had been contracted to ago in some dialects long before this usage began, in end of 14th c.; ago became the ordinary prose form from Caxton, but agone has remained dialectally, and as an archaic and poetic variant to the present day.] 

    A. ppl. adj. Gone by; by-gone; past. (Now always follows its noun.)
 
  c1314 Guy Warw. 58 For it was ago fif yer That he was last ther. c1386 CHAUCER Wife's T. 7 (Lansd.) I speke of mony a hundred ere a-go. 1388 WYCLIF Gen. xxi. 2 As istirdai, and the thridde dai agoon. c1450 Knt. de la Tour 158 It is not yet longe tyme agoo that suche custume was vsed. 1528 MORE Heresyes II. Wks. 1557, 179/2 Nowe quite gone manye yeares a goo. 1601 SHAKES. Twel. N. V. i. 204 O he's drunke, sir Toby, an houre agone. 1611 BIBLE 1 Sam. XXX. 13 Three dayes agone I fell sicke. 1718 Free-thinker No. 61, 42 Some Years agoe they were remarkable for the narrowest Hats in the Kingdom. a1849 HOR. SMITH Addr. Mummy i, In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago. 1846 HAWTHORNE Mosses I. iv. 70 And that's full fifteen minutes agone. 1869 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Innoc. Abr. xxi. 212 Some two and forty years agone the good count rode hence to fight for Holy Cross. 1914 W. OWEN Let. 19 July (1967) 267 So you are at last getting the Curtains, about which we fidaddled so long a year & more agone! 1933 H. ALLEN Anthony Adverse I. II. xiii. 170 It's over ten years agone, you know, since... 1980 Amer. Speech 1976 LI. 245 Among recent coinages I miss admanity, a worthy successor to Thomas Carlyle's gigmanity a century agone.
 

    B. adv. in Long ago: a long while ago, in time long gone, long since. Chaucer has also yore ago.
 
  c1366 CHAUCER Compl. Pite 1 Pite that I haue sought so yore agoo. 1377 LANGL. P. Pl. B. XVIII. 271, I is lord knowe, it is longe ago I knewe him. 1417 CLIFFORD in Ellis Orig. Lett. II. 29 I. 90 It liked to youre seyd Hyghnesse not longe agon to wryte to me. 1548 UDALL, etc. Erasm. Paraphr. Matt. xvi. 2 Ye would haue beleued me long agon. 1633 FORD Broken Heart III. v. (1839) 63 'Tis long agone since first I lost my heart. 1833 H. MARTINEAU Loom & Lug. I. v. 89 Dead and gone long ago.
 

    ¶Corrupt form. See A prep.²
 
  c1538 STARKEY England 88 Not many yerys of-goo.