"dry behind the ears" meaning in English

See dry behind the ears in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: en-au-dry behind the ears.ogg
Head templates: {{head|en|adjective|head=dry behind the ears}} dry behind the ears
  1. (idiomatic) Seasoned or experienced; mature, especially with respect to judgment. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-dry_behind_the_ears-en-adj-RWbZCHUp Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
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          "word": "wet behind the ears"
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        {
          "ref": "1850, Springfield Rep., (Whig.), Daily (Columbus) Ohio Statesman, 9 May, p. 3, col. 4",
          "text": "Why, you irreclaimable donkey, don’t you know the “notice” was an advertisement? When will you get dry behind the ears?"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, Jack London, chapter 3, in Burning Daylight:",
          "text": "When you fellers was his age, you wa'n't dry behind the ears yet. He never was no kid. He was born a full-grown man.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 6, in The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published 31 October 1921, →OCLC:",
          "text": "\"You're past twenty-one,\" he said, \"an' dry behind the ears.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 10, in The Grapes of Wrath:",
          "text": "”When you bastards get dry behin' the ears, you'll maybe learn to let a ol' fella sleep.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001 October 22, William Safire, “Essay: Advance The Story”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-10-05:",
          "text": "That wearing of blinders by our intelligence agents was recently revealed by The Washington Post's columnist and editor Jim Hoagland, who is dry behind the ears, to say the least.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Seasoned or experienced; mature, especially with respect to judgment."
      ],
      "id": "en-dry_behind_the_ears-en-adj-RWbZCHUp",
      "links": [
        [
          "Seasoned",
          "seasoned"
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        [
          "experienced",
          "experienced"
        ],
        [
          "mature",
          "mature"
        ],
        [
          "judgment",
          "judgment"
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        "(idiomatic) Seasoned or experienced; mature, especially with respect to judgment."
      ],
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  "word": "dry behind the ears"
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        {
          "ref": "1850, Springfield Rep., (Whig.), Daily (Columbus) Ohio Statesman, 9 May, p. 3, col. 4",
          "text": "Why, you irreclaimable donkey, don’t you know the “notice” was an advertisement? When will you get dry behind the ears?"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1910, Jack London, chapter 3, in Burning Daylight:",
          "text": "When you fellers was his age, you wa'n't dry behind the ears yet. He never was no kid. He was born a full-grown man.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 6, in The Mucker, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published 31 October 1921, →OCLC:",
          "text": "\"You're past twenty-one,\" he said, \"an' dry behind the ears.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 10, in The Grapes of Wrath:",
          "text": "”When you bastards get dry behin' the ears, you'll maybe learn to let a ol' fella sleep.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001 October 22, William Safire, “Essay: Advance The Story”, in New York Times, retrieved 2010-10-05:",
          "text": "That wearing of blinders by our intelligence agents was recently revealed by The Washington Post's columnist and editor Jim Hoagland, who is dry behind the ears, to say the least.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "Seasoned or experienced; mature, especially with respect to judgment."
      ],
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          "Seasoned",
          "seasoned"
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          "experienced",
          "experienced"
        ],
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          "judgment"
        ]
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        "(idiomatic) Seasoned or experienced; mature, especially with respect to judgment."
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Download raw JSONL data for dry behind the ears meaning in English (2.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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