Idioms

times change

times change

The social norms, standards, or expectations of the country or world become different over time. The people in this neighborhood used to be a tight-knit community of friends. Times change, though, and by now everyone has either moved away or drifted apart. A: "Don't you think it's just a really weird way to live?" B: "Hey, times change! All sorts of stuff is OK now that was taboo 20 years ago." It used to be that you'd finish college, get a job, and then you'd be set for the rest of your life. But times change, and those life-long careers seem harder and harder to find.
See also: change, times
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

Times change(, people change).

Prov. As time passes, different things become acceptable. Grandmother: In my day, no decent young woman would wear anything as immodest as what you've got on. Granddaughter: Times change, Grandma. Alan: When I was in business school, the practices you call good business were called dishonest. Fred: Yeah, well, times change, people change.
See also: change, times
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
See also:
References in periodicals archive
Consider how times change. The Holmfirth Express in the early 1900's was reporting childrens' deaths on the road; in 1905 a memorial was presented from 360 residents to Holmfirth Council urging them to get on with the recreation ground at Cliff because of the urgent need to get children off games in the street.
Manager Lorraine Barrett said: "It's disappointing but times change. She was very nice and charming when she came but it was just the once."
? HOW times change. Check out the shirt lettering (left).
I know times change, things evolve, and so we should all move with the times.
But times change. History moves on." Rumpole despairs of adherence to things like the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights any longer.
How times change. I remember when you could buy a Cobra in the mid-Seventies for three grand, because nobody wanted one.
How times change. If I had even contemplated licking a boyfriend's earlobe in front of my parents, I'd have been grounded until my 40s.
He said: "Learning disability used to be known as 'mental handicap' but times change and people with a learning disability now find the old term offensive.
Times change: the wings are back, and so is Lucifer's involvement in the politics of Hell.
He burst into gales of laughter, breaking off only to say: 'Times change, old boy, times change.'
Many of those musty old documents refer to governors, legislators, and state officials all as "he." But times change.
Though times change and the Tempodrom has now become a more mainstream fixture in Berlin's cultural life, von Gerkan Marg's imaginative approach to its reinvention still preserves some teasing memories of its anarchic origins.
These approaches, in sum or in part, inevitably become irrelevant as times change. How can we feel secure living by ideas so rigid that nothing--no matter how compelling--can change them?
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