1. last year or the recent past, especially as nostalgically recalled:literary"return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear"
Word Originmid 19th century: from yester- + year. The word was popularized by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation of a line in a poem by the medieval French poet François Villon: ‘Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?’ (‘But where are the snows of yesteryear?’).
