know better

1. Be able to recognize something as wrong or not possible, as in Mary should know better than to leave her child alone in the house, or Try to get in without a ticket? You know better than that. [c. 1700]

Example Sentences

“It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you’re the smartest person in the room,” the network news vice president said to Jane Craig, played by Holly Hunter, in “Broadcast News.”

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“There’s a lot of people who take Social Security early because they need the money or they didn’t know better.”

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Mainstream journalists and political figures typically describe the FBI as the federal government’s law enforcement agency, but most of them, perhaps all of them, know better.

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The Sport Prestige’s alpha-swagger is the intricately quilted Nappa leather upholstery, its puzzlework of seams outlined with contrasting piping and double stitching—an orange the company calls “Magma” but you may know better as “DOT Vest.”

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“If we don’t do that, more children will be abused by people who don’t know better. Their children’s lives are being abused day and night,” Pickup said.

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