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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#m1)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x1)
- 3 years ago Mia was 5. How old is she now? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x2)
- Ben planted a tree 4 years ago. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x3)
- Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x4)
- We moved here a long time ago. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x5)
- Long ago, people had no electricity. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x6)
- The bus left five minutes ago. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x7)
- How long ago did you lose your tooth? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/#x8)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/23-when-grandma-and-grandad-need-more-help/15/)
- [Nearly 2000 years ago a volcano buried a Roman town and burned a library of scrolls to black lumps that nobody could open.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/23-news-tricked-bots-discoveries/0/)
- [Italian artists worked out the rules of perspective about 600 years ago.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/arts/12-drawing-lines-shapes-and-drawing-what-you-really-see/12/)
- [In Aesop's fable from ancient Greece, about 2500 years ago, a little mouse saves a lion by gnawing through a net.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/18-the-lion-king-of-the-beasts/12/)
- [The ancestors of elephants, around 55 million years ago, were pig-sized animals with no trunk.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/21-elephants-the-trunk/19/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «ago» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/ago/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.