"fresh off the boat" meaning in English

See fresh off the boat in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Forms: fob [alternative], FOB [alternative]
Head templates: {{head|en|adjective}} fresh off the boat
  1. (idiomatic, usually derogatory) Newly arrived from a foreign place, especially as an immigrant who is still unfamiliar with the customs and language of their new environment. Tags: derogatory, idiomatic, usually Synonyms: FOB [abbreviation] Derived forms: fob
    Sense id: en-fresh_off_the_boat-en-adj-n5JwpdOX Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Human migration

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fob",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "FOB",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective"
      },
      "expansion": "fresh off the boat",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Human migration",
          "orig": "en:Human migration",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "fob"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              9,
              27
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1998, “Two Little Girls”, in Ani DiFranco (lyrics), Little Plastic Castle, performed by Ani DiFranco:",
          "text": "You were fresh off the boat from Virginia / I had a year in New York City under my belt / We met in a dream, we were both nineteen",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Lev Grossman, \"They Built This City (book review),\" Time, 20 Mar.",
          "text": "Metropolis is the story of a harmless, hapless, nameless young German immigrant, fresh off the boat in 1860-something, who has a knack for naively stumbling into complicated plots through no fault of his own."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Newly arrived from a foreign place, especially as an immigrant who is still unfamiliar with the customs and language of their new environment."
      ],
      "id": "en-fresh_off_the_boat-en-adj-n5JwpdOX",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "Newly",
          "newly"
        ],
        [
          "arrive",
          "arrive"
        ],
        [
          "foreign",
          "foreign"
        ],
        [
          "immigrant",
          "immigrant"
        ],
        [
          "unfamiliar",
          "unfamiliar"
        ],
        [
          "custom",
          "custom"
        ],
        [
          "language",
          "language"
        ],
        [
          "environment",
          "environment"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, usually derogatory) Newly arrived from a foreign place, especially as an immigrant who is still unfamiliar with the customs and language of their new environment."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "abbreviation"
          ],
          "word": "FOB"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "idiomatic",
        "usually"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fresh off the boat"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "fob"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "fob",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "FOB",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective"
      },
      "expansion": "fresh off the boat",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Human migration"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              9,
              27
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1998, “Two Little Girls”, in Ani DiFranco (lyrics), Little Plastic Castle, performed by Ani DiFranco:",
          "text": "You were fresh off the boat from Virginia / I had a year in New York City under my belt / We met in a dream, we were both nineteen",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Lev Grossman, \"They Built This City (book review),\" Time, 20 Mar.",
          "text": "Metropolis is the story of a harmless, hapless, nameless young German immigrant, fresh off the boat in 1860-something, who has a knack for naively stumbling into complicated plots through no fault of his own."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Newly arrived from a foreign place, especially as an immigrant who is still unfamiliar with the customs and language of their new environment."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "Newly",
          "newly"
        ],
        [
          "arrive",
          "arrive"
        ],
        [
          "foreign",
          "foreign"
        ],
        [
          "immigrant",
          "immigrant"
        ],
        [
          "unfamiliar",
          "unfamiliar"
        ],
        [
          "custom",
          "custom"
        ],
        [
          "language",
          "language"
        ],
        [
          "environment",
          "environment"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, usually derogatory) Newly arrived from a foreign place, especially as an immigrant who is still unfamiliar with the customs and language of their new environment."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "abbreviation"
          ],
          "word": "FOB"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "idiomatic",
        "usually"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "fresh off the boat"
}

Download raw JSONL data for fresh off the boat meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-20 using wiktextract (074e7de and f1c2b61). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.