born yesterday
Easily fooled, inexperienced
Born yesterday describes someone naive or easily fooled.
The phrase appears almost exclusively in the negative: I wasn't born yesterday means I'm not gullible enough to fall for that.
The implication is that only someone with no life experience—a newborn—would believe such nonsense.
- greenhornInexperienced, gullible newcomer
- fresh off the boatNewly arrived from abroad
- beginnerOne who lacks experience
- newcomerRecent arrival somewhere
- neophyteInexperienced beginner
babe in the woods · credulity · unworldliness · easy mark · soft touch · gullible · novice · unsuspecting · callow · fell off the turnip truck · ignorance · wet behind the ears · green as grass · taken in · taken for a ride · naive · rookie · fledgling
- youth sayingsfountain of youth, salad days, spring chicken, tender age, young at heart
- naivetenaivety, naive, innocence, gullible, gullibility
- naivetygreenhorn, newbie, tenderfoot, raw recruit, green as grass
- novicesnovice, beginner, rookie, newbie, greenhorn
- suckerssucker, lollipop, Dum Dum, Tootsie Pop, all-day sucker
born yesterdayworldly-wise
Experienced in practical matters
streetwise · sophisticated · worldly · savvy · experienced
born yesterdayshrewd
Practically clever, perceptive
nobody's fool · sharp as a tack · canny · hard to fool · skeptical
bore, born, bearing, newborn, yesterday, unborn, reborn, borne, firstborn