be born yesterday
"be-born-yesterday" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“be born yesterday” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To be new, naive, innocent, inexperienced, or easily deceived.
Corpus desk
Index EN-be-born-yesterday · be born yesterday · English
be born yesterday · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | be born yesterday |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “be born yesterday” in English
Rare enough to double-check
be born yesterday is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To be new, naive, innocent, inexperienced, or easily deceived.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for be born yesterday in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is be born yesterday, spelled B-E- -B-O-R-N- -Y-E-S-T-E-R-D-A-Y.
Definition
- 1To be new, naive, innocent, inexperienced, or easily deceived.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how be born yesterday appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I was not born yesterday, you know. I have done this before!
"Do you think," he added, with an ironical grin, "that you'll go for to gammon me into that air! I'm hinnocent, I know, but I wasn't born yesterday exactly."
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.