> as lemmas

c1400 (?a1387) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Huntington HM 137) (1873) C. vi. l. 95 (MED) He þat ofte haueþ chaffared, Þat ay hath lost and lost, and at þe latiste hym happed He bouhte suche a bargayn.

1604 E. Grimeston tr. True Hist. Siege Ostend 45 That you deliuer it [sc. the some of 600000. crownes] into the handes of our commissaries in your quarter, at the latest by the fifteene of September next comming.

1699 J. Drake & A. Baden tr. D. Le Clerc Hist. Physick iv. ix. 404 Praxagoras came a little after Diocles, living at the latest about the time of Aristotle.

1736 W. Popple Double Deceit iii. iii. 46 He hopes to be in Town, at latest, by To-morrow Noon.

1793 E. Gibbon Let. 25 July in Gentleman's Mag. (1797) Nov. 915/1 My speedy return to the Continent (next Spring at the latest) will preclude all opportunities of regular inspection.

1834 G. R. Gleig Allan Breck II. xvi. 293 We shall expect you here the day after tomorrow at the latest.

1884 Times 30 Jan. 9/3 Between February, or March at latest, and May.

1921 T. S. Eliot Let. 16 Aug. (1988) I. 463 I can get out as early as I like, but must always at the latest be back by 1.30.

1973 T. Crouse Boys on Bus i. i. 5 Many reporters were knotting their stomachs over their Sunday pieces, which had to be filed that afternoon at the latest.

2007 Guardian 29 Dec. 38/3 The so-called golden agers, who liked to suggest that television had done its best work by, at the latest, the 1970s.