yesterday
Noun · AdverbOpen English WordNet
Noun (2)yesterdays
- the day immediately before today“it was in yesterday's newspapers”Type of day, twenty-four hours
- the recent past“yesterday's solutions are not good enough”“we shared many yesterdays”Type of past, past times
Adverb (2)
- on the day preceding today“yesterday the weather was beautiful”
- in the recent past; only a short time ago“I was not born yesterday!”
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Translations
Noun day before today
- Spanish
- ayer
- French
- hier
- German
- gestern
- Italian
- ieri
- Portuguese
- ontem
- Turkish
- dün
- Russian
- вчера́ včerá
- Arabic
- أَمْس ʔams
- Chinese
- 昨天 zuótiān
- Japanese
- 昨日 kinō
30 more languages
- Dutch
- gisteren
- Polish
- wczoraj
- Swedish
- i går
- Greek
- χθες chthes
- Korean
- 어제 eoje
- Indonesian
- kemarin
- Vietnamese
- hôm qua
- Hungarian
- tegnap
- Portuguese (PT)
- ontem
- Chinese (Trad.)
- 昨天 zuótiān
- Albanian
- dje
- Catalan
- ahir
- Czech
- včerejšek
- Danish
- i går
- Esperanto
- hieraŭ
- Estonian
- eile
- Finnish
- eilinen
- Georgian
- გუშინ gušin
- Hebrew
- אֶתְמוֹל 'etmól
- Latvian
- vakar
- Lithuanian
- vakar
- Malagasy
- omaly
- Norwegian
- gårsdag
- Romanian
- ieri
- Scottish Gaelic
- an-dè
- Serbo-Croatian
- jučer
- Slovak
- včera
- Swahili
- jana
- Welsh
- ddoe
- Yiddish
- נעכטן nekhtn
The main translation for each meaning, from the langtolang.com multilingual dictionary. Each word links to its full entry there.
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: OE. ȝisterdai, AS. geostran dæg, from geostran, geostra, giestran, gistran, gystran, yesterday (akin to D. gisteren, G. gestern, OHG. gestaron, Icel. gær yesterday, to-morrow, Goth. gistradagis to-morrow, L. heri yesterday, Gr. …, Skr. hyas) + dæg day. Cf. Hestern. ….
1. The day last past; the day next before the present.
All our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.— William Shakespeare
We are but of yesterday, and know nothing.— Job viii. 9.
2. Fig.: A recent time; time not long past.
The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of supreme pontiffs.— Thomas Babington Macaulay
On the day last past; on the day preceding to-day; as, the affair took place yesterday.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54
The Devil's Dictionary
But yesterday I should have thought me blest To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak Of middle life and look adown the bleak And unfamiliar foreslope to the West, Where solemn shadows all the land invest And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest. Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame To stay the shadow on the dial's face At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name I chide aloud the little interspace Disparting me from Certitude, and fain Would know the dream and vision ne'er again. Baruch Arnegriff
It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors.