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old as Adam

old as Adam idiom

Also, old as the hills. Ancient, as in He must be as old as Adam by now, or That joke is as old as the hills. The first term, alluding to the first human created by God, according to the Bible, was first recorded only in 1867. The variant, referring to geological time (when mountains were created), dates from about 1800.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.