Word.ws English Dictionary

know someone when

know someone when verb: to have known a famous person before he or she was famous.

Verb

know someone when (third-person singular simple present knows someone when, present participle knowing someone when, simple past knew someone when, past participle known someone when)

  1. (past, usually) To have known a famous person before he or she was famous.
    • His friends thought him crazy, as friends always think when a man has an original idea and acts on it. Now, when his friends speak of him they invariably add, "I knew him when—"1915, "Interesting People: Charles Bullard: A Famous Photographer of Cats", in "The American Magazine"
    • Of course when your school chum comes in from the old home town you want to send him back a life-long member of the "I-knew-him-when Club." You picture him back home, just a wee bit superior, as befits a friend of the great, holding forth to the boy's at the Sunshine Athletic Club.1918, Western Electric News

Forms of know someone when

third-person singular presentknows someone when
present participleknowing someone when
pastknew someone when
past participleknown someone when

Origin of know someone when

From the formulaic phrase by which speakers begin reminiscence of now-famous persons.

Questions about know someone when

What does know someone when mean?
Know someone when means to have known a famous person before he or she was famous.
What part of speech is know someone when?
Know someone when is a verb.
What is the past tense of know someone when?
The past tense of know someone when is knew someone when.

Words near know someone when in the dictionary

  1. know someone from Adam's off ox
  2. know someone from Eve
  3. know someone from the man in the moon
  4. know someone from the man on the moon
  5. know someone in the biblical sense
  6. know someone when
  7. know the difference between one's ass and a hole in the ground
  8. know the difference between one's ass and one's elbow
  9. know the drill
  10. know the ropes
  11. know the score

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: know someone when (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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