ain't what it used to was

ain't what it used to was

1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Is not what it used to be; (expressing nostalgia).
   • 1852, Harper's New Monthly Magazine: Volume 5‎, Harper & Brothers, page 848:

     Thanksgiving 'ain't what it used to was.'

   • 1862, Albany Fonblanque, chapter XXIV, in The St. James's Magazine: Volume 5‎, Houlston & Wright, A Tangled Skein: A Romance, page 180:

     Your memory ain't what it used to was, my man, or what it ought to be.

   • 1920 October 23, Ellis Parker Butler, “A Pastoral”, in Judge (a satirical magazine):

     Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop
     And said. "It is jest like I suz
     T’ th’ parson—Grandfather’s liver
     Ain’t what it used to was."

   • 1948 December 17, The Winonan‎, volume XXX, number 3, Winona State Teachers College, Winona, Minn., page 2:

     With a few more years to procrastinate, as we used to say of the old gray mare, we'll be able to say of the elementary schools, "It ain't what it used to was!"