1930s; earliest use found in Winifred Holtby (1898–1935), novelist and feminist reformer. From French recherche du temps perdu (1924 or earlier; from recherche + du, partitive article + temps time + perdu lost: see perdu), after À la recherche du temps perdu (lit. ‘in search of the lost time’), the title of a novel (published in seven volumes 1913–27) by Marcel Proust, first published in English as Remembrance of Things Past (six volumes 1922–30) and Time Regained (the final volume, 1931).