English

Verb

be born yesterday ‎(past tense only)

1. (idiomatic, informal) To be new, naive, innocent, inexperienced, or easily deceived.

   I was not born yesterday, you know. I have done this before!

   • 1915, William MacLeod Raine, Steve Yeager, ch. 6:

     "Say, do I look like I was born yesterday? See any green in my eye, Cactus Center?"

   • 1998, Gwyn Hyman Rubio, Icy Sparks‎, page 155:

     "Compared to me, you were born yesterday."

   • 2005, Howard Zinn and Donaldo Pereira Macedo, Howard Zinn on Democratic Education‎, page 69:

     If you don't know important things about history, then it's as if you were born yesterday.

Usage notes

• Mostly used in the negative to indicate that one is not as naive as had been implied, but sometimes in an affirmative form, as in the quotations above.

Synonyms

• See Wikisaurus:naive

Translations