fresh off the boat
Americanidiom
Sensitive Note
The expression fresh off the boat is sometimes used by immigrants themselves or by friends and family to joke about or reflect on a time when they knew less about their adoptive country than they know now. When used in self-reference, no offense is usually intended or taken. However, when attributed by nonimmigrants to immigrants with whom they are not close, the expression can be offensive or disparaging.
Etymology
Origin of fresh off the boat
First recorded in 1910–15, in reference to food
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.
“I remember being fresh off the boat, thinking: ‘Wow, what is place?
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 23, 2022
For Paddington, it's the Browns, the family who stumbled across him fresh off the boat and looking ever so lost at Paddington Station.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 15, 2015
Last week, beribboned and jaunty, fresh off the boat from Japan, Colonel Murray had another, smaller key.
From Time Magazine Archive
The whole book is interleaved with reproductions of early advertisements, ranging from Colonial day notices of brandy fresh off the boat to Victorian plugs for high-wheeled gentlemen's velocipedes and high-heeled ladies' boots.
From Time Magazine Archive
If I were one of the people they were protesting, fresh off the boat, I would be sure I had just happened upon some community celebration, a festival of the culture.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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.
