yesterday
Americanadverb
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on the day preceding this day.
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a short time ago.
Yesterday your money went further.
noun
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the day preceding this day.
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time in the immediate past.
adjective
noun
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the day immediately preceding today
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(often plural) the recent past
adverb
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on or during the day before today
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in the recent past
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of yesterday
before 950; Middle English; Old English geostran dæg. See yester-, day
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities,” OpenAI said yesterday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
“It is with profound sadness that we share the heartbreaking news that one of our TSD seniors, Kaylee Hottle, tragically passed away yesterday in a car accident in Frederick, Maryland,” read the Instagram post.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
At lunchtime, Burnham will gather his cabinet for the first time, after its appointment yesterday became something of a nocturnal affair.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Views of just one of the wildfires ripping across Ontario, Canada yesterday.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
The last date opened was yesterday, a few hours after he left Mirror Tech.
From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste
With both of us facing more yesterdays than tomorrows, I cop to midlife anxiety, feeling like time is running out for goals such as learning Spanish or how to swim.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
More important may be simply having a reason to remember some of the yesterdays of a franchise that has 48 rich years of history.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 28, 2023
“We’re all in our twilight years; we have more yesterdays than tomorrows,” Davis said.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 4, 2021
It was not always easy to live down Brown’s yesterdays either.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2020
Slowly, at the camp high school, I'm learning about where I come from, the peculiar yesterdays of my people.
From "What the Night Sings" by Vesper Stamper
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
