"salad days" meaning in English

See salad days in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: Coined by William Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra around 1607, see quotations. Head templates: {{en-noun|p|head=salad days}} salad days pl (plural only)
  1. A period of inexperienced youthful innocence accompanied by enthusiasm and idealism. Wikipedia link: Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare, salad days Tags: plural, plural-only Categories (topical): Nostalgia Coordinate_terms: halcyon days

Download JSON data for salad days meaning in English (3.4kB)

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  "head_templates": [
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
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      "coordinate_terms": [
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          "word": "halcyon days"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1874 October, “Salad Days”, in The American Educational Monthly, page 462",
          "text": "The season of salad days has been rightly called a season of folly—rightly, because nature wisely intended salad days for folly, and we are wise to regard them as a time for folly. But are we wise when, halting upon the crutches age finds convenient after the gambols of youth have lost their attractions, we condemn this season of harmless folly to perpetual reprobation?",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "But it must be in solitude. I do not need or desire to hobnob artificially with other old men in order to revisit them in their salad days, and to renew my own.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2015, 23m30s from the start, in Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 6, spoken by Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton)",
          "text": "Do you know I've not been to a ball in ages? I used to be quite the dancer in my salad days, if you can believe such a thing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 February 24, Annie Mebane, Shrinking, season 1, episode 6",
          "text": "Liz: Derek, remember when I used to want to fuck all the time?\nDerek: Ah, yes. The salad days.\nLiz: Mmh. Now, my sex window is between 3 and 3:20 pm and Derek needs not to have annoyed me that day.\nDerek: Doesn't happen often.",
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        "A period of inexperienced youthful innocence accompanied by enthusiasm and idealism."
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{
  "coordinate_terms": [
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      "word": "halcyon days"
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  "etymology_text": "Coined by William Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra around 1607, see quotations.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "ref": "1874 October, “Salad Days”, in The American Educational Monthly, page 462",
          "text": "The season of salad days has been rightly called a season of folly—rightly, because nature wisely intended salad days for folly, and we are wise to regard them as a time for folly. But are we wise when, halting upon the crutches age finds convenient after the gambols of youth have lost their attractions, we condemn this season of harmless folly to perpetual reprobation?",
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          "ref": "1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "But it must be in solitude. I do not need or desire to hobnob artificially with other old men in order to revisit them in their salad days, and to renew my own.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2015, 23m30s from the start, in Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 6, spoken by Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton)",
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          "ref": "2023 February 24, Annie Mebane, Shrinking, season 1, episode 6",
          "text": "Liz: Derek, remember when I used to want to fuck all the time?\nDerek: Ah, yes. The salad days.\nLiz: Mmh. Now, my sex window is between 3 and 3:20 pm and Derek needs not to have annoyed me that day.\nDerek: Doesn't happen often.",
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        "A period of inexperienced youthful innocence accompanied by enthusiasm and idealism."
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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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