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1584 C. Robinson et al. Handefull Pleasant Delites (new ed.) sig. Av I which was once a happie wight, and hie in Fortunes grace: And which did spend my golden prime, in running pleasures race.

1592 T. Kyd Spanish Trag. i. sig. A2 My discent..inferiour far To gratious fortunes of my tender youth: For there in prime and pride of all my yeeres..In secret I possest a worthy dame.

1597 W. Shakespeare Richard III i. ii. 234 And will she yet debase her eyes on me That cropt the golden prime of this sweete Prince. View more context for this quotation

1603 R. Knolles Gen. Hist. Turkes 158 But when he was out of his childhood, and growne to be a lustie youth,..and in the prime of his youth.

1632 W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. iii. 106 Whereof in the prime of my adolescency..I had the full proofe.

1645 J. Milton Sonnet ix, in Poems 50 Lady that in the prime of earliest youth, Wisely hath shun'd the broad way and the green.

1712 R. Steele Spectator No. 282. ⁋3 They had by this time passed their Prime, and got on the wrong side of Thirty.

1726 J. Swift Gulliver I. i. ii. 29 He was then past his Prime, being twenty-eight Years and three Quarters old.

1770 ‘Junius’ Stat Nominis Umbra (1772) II. xxxvi. 58 The vices operate like age..and in the prime of youth leave the character broken and exhausted.

1838 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Ferdinand & Isabella III. ii. xvi. 170 She followed to the grave..her only son, the heir and hope of the monarchy, just entering on his prime.

1877 W. Black Green Pastures xxii There was he, in the prime of youthful manhood.

1904 J. London Bâtard in Faith of Men 209 When he reached his full strength and prime of youth, he thought the time had come.

1994 Budo Dojo Autumn 44/1 To a country rich in legend, the sacrifice of World War II kamikaze pilots in the prime of youth spoke to Japan's popular imagination.