0 belonging to or happening in a past time:
a bygone era
1 used to tell someone that they should forget about unpleasant things that happened in the past, and especially to forgive and forget something bad that someone has done to them :
There is a genuine feeling in the district that bygones should be bygones.
Travelling by streetcar, tourists could peep into a bygone world offering scenes far from ' 'everyday living ' ' and ' ' modern ways.
The king told them to let bygones be bygones; from then on they would start a new account.
In addition, the book is engaging and well written, not a dull account of a bygone ' feudal ' empire.
In the by-gone days, these potters created their clayware without the use of a potter's wheel.
I wanted to let bygones be bygones.
Echoing similar instances of occurrences in the by-gone era, more often than not ends up painting a negative picture, distilling bare bone details of facts and figures.
In the same vein, the study of bygone verbal cultures benefits from our knowledge of present-day verbal cultures.