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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yesterdays
plural
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the day preceding this day.
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time in the immediate past.
adjective
noun
-
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:
His is a vocation to un-forgetting, to recording the memories of tomorrow’s yesterday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
"Boats carrying armed Houthi fighters reached Mayyun Island after government forces withdrew from it yesterday," the local government official told AFP, referring to an island also known as Perim.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
“Neither company is acting responsibly,” he wrote on X yesterday.
From Slate ● Sep. 9, 2026
"At the end of the first set I was thinking about Frances and how he came back yesterday," Gauff said.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
I haven’t texted Skye and Madi since yesterday, and I missed our movie date today.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
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
At this moment in its history, Pittsburgh is working to blend its fabled industrial yesterdays with a 21st-century economy based increasingly on services and innovation — something the map project reflects.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 2, 2023
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death,” Browne said.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 8, 2022
“We’re all in our twilight years; we have more yesterdays than tomorrows,” Davis said.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 4, 2021
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
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.
