Word.ws English Dictionary

wet behind the ears

wet behind the ears adjective: inexperienced; just beginning; immature (especially in judgment).

Adjective

wet behind the ears

  1. (idiomatic) Inexperienced; just beginning; immature (especially in judgment).
    • [They would put] their hands behind their ears and pat the top of their heads to taunt me with the fact that I was still wet behind the ears and soft on top of the head.1903 August 2, “The Boy Whose Parents Wanted Him to Be Useful”, in Chicago Tribune, retrieved 05 Oct 2010, page B2
    • Every week day, pool rooms are filled with scores of boys still "wet behind the ears" who have no business anywhere but in the classroom.1950 January 13, Roger Appleton, “Police to End Teen-Age Gambling: Strike at Pool Hall Hangouts”, in Ottawa Citizen, Canada, retrieved 05 Oct 2010, page 18
    Synonyms:
    green behind the ears>>

wet behind the ears meaning in Tamil, Indonesian and Vietnamese

wet behind the ears in Tamil

அனுபவமற்ற, புதிய

wet behind the ears in Indonesian

inexperienced, not seasoned
ingusan

wet behind the ears in Vietnamese

inexperienced, not seasoned
chân ướt chân ráo

Examples of wet behind the ears in a sentence

  • Now, here was the freshly minted FDA commissioner, still wet behind the ears at 39.1991 July 15, Dick Thompson, “The Man with the Plan”, in Time:
  • "These young whippersnappers are still wet behind the ears."2004 September 8, Jarrett Bell, “Bengals' Kitna 'classy' about losing job to Palmer”, in USA Today, retrieved 05 Oct 2010:

Synonyms of wet behind the ears

  • green behind the ears>>

Antonyms

Forms of wet behind the ears

alternative formwet-behind-the-ears

Origin of wet behind the ears

First use appears c. 1850 in Pennsylvania, a calque of German feucht hinter den Ohren. From the drying of amniotic fluid of a baby after birth, specifically a newborn farm animal, whose ears are the last to dry, partly because it is licked dry by its mother everywhere else. Alternative forms also derive from German.

Questions about wet behind the ears

What does wet behind the ears mean?
Wet behind the ears means inexperienced; just beginning; immature (especially in judgment).
What is wet behind the ears in Tamil?
Wet behind the ears in Tamil is அனுபவமற்ற, புதிய. See Wet behind the ears meaning in Tamil.
How do you use wet behind the ears in a sentence?
Now, here was the freshly minted FDA commissioner, still wet behind the ears at 39.
What part of speech is wet behind the ears?
Wet behind the ears is an adjective.

Words near wet behind the ears in the dictionary

  1. wet bags
  2. wet bar
  3. wet bargain
  4. wet bargains
  5. wet bars
  6. wet behind the ears
  7. wet beriberi
  8. wet blanket
  9. wet blanketed
  10. wet blanketing
  11. wet blankets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wet behind the ears (page history and authors); wet behind the ears (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-wet behind the ears.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wet behind the ears.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wet_behind_the_ears. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.