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If you “set a record,” you do something that is more, higher, better, or faster than what has been done before. You can emphasize that a record is the biggest in all of history by call it an “all-time record.”
Sadly, the U.S. set an all-time record for drug overdose deaths in 2021. Over 100,000 Americans died that year of overdoses; most were from opioids. By saying “all-time record,” we emphasize that 2021 was the year in which the most people died of drug overdoses. This is a way of emphasizing that it is the most in all of history.
Basketball star LeBron James recently set the all-time record for points scored in a career. Nobody in the NBA has scored more points in a career than LeBron James, and that record extends for all of history (or, all of the NBA’s history, anyway).