From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbe a thing of the pastbe a thing of the pastEXISTto no longer exist or happen Before AIDS, many health care experts believed that large-scale infectious diseases were a thing of the past. → thing
Examples from the Corpus
be a thing of the past• Life-long employment with a single company is a thing of the past.• Otherwise, Tucsonans should merely leave the bees alone, and the scared news stories will probably be things of the past. 