Idiom
long time no see
Meaning
I (or we) have not seen you for a long time.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Long time no see, how are you?”
“Long time no see, do you still work at the library?”
“I ran into an old classmate at the grocery store and said, long time no see.”
“My former neighbor knocked on my door to return some mail and greeted me with a friendly long time no see.”
“I saw my cousin at the wedding for the first time in a decade and shouted long time no see across the room.”
“When my old boss walked into the coffee shop, I smiled and said long time no see before asking about his new business.”
“After years of living in different cities, they embraced warmly and remarked, long time no see, before catching up on their lives.”
Examples
simple
“Long time no see, how are you?”
“Long time no see, do you still work at the library?”
contextual
“I ran into an old classmate at the grocery store and said, long time no see.”
“My former neighbor knocked on my door to return some mail and greeted me with a friendly long time no see.”
“I saw my cousin at the wedding for the first time in a decade and shouted long time no see across the room.”
“When my old boss walked into the coffee shop, I smiled and said long time no see before asking about his new business.”
complex
“After years of living in different cities, they embraced warmly and remarked, long time no see, before catching up on their lives.”
Origin
Uncertain. Possibly a calque of Cantonese 好耐冇見 /好耐冇见 (hou² noi⁶ mou⁵ gin³) or Chinese 很久沒見 /很久没见 (hěnjiǔméijiàn) or Chinese 好久不见 (hǎojiǔbùjiàn), comparable to no can do or chop-chop – if so, most likely US Chinatown origin, alternatively British Far East such as Hong Kong. Alternatively, native American origin, or native coinage as pidgin, particularly in cinematic portrayals of native Americans; compare language used by Tonto (1930s).
Key words
Related idioms
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