Word.ws English Dictionary

yesterday but one

yesterday but one adverb: day before yesterday.

Adverb

yesterday but one (not comparable)

  1. (dialectal) Day before yesterday.
    • "Yesterday but one I located a number of them twisted matches in the floor sweepings of the Slade Arms; an' all that evenin' I sat there, watchin' the different men that came in an' had a drink an' a smoke; but I couldn't get onto no one. …"1917, William Hope Hodgson, The Mystery of Captain Chappel
    • "Yesterday but one [the day before yesterday], I bought a kilo of beans at 4,000 [shillings]. Yesterday, I came back and it was 5,000."2020 April 21, “How Uganda’s history of epidemics has prepared it for COVID-19” (4:49 from the start), in PBS NewsHour, Michael Baleke (actor), WETA-TV, via Public Broadcasting Service

Origin of yesterday but one

From yesterday + but (“except for”) + one https://www.observer.ug/lifestyle/42-entertainment/44856-kataaha-has-to-sort-out-the-cracks-in-english

Questions about yesterday but one

What does yesterday but one mean?
Yesterday but one means day before yesterday.
What part of speech is yesterday but one?
Yesterday but one is an adverb.

Words near yesterday but one in the dictionary

  1. yester-years
  2. yestercentury
  3. yesterdawn
  4. yesterdawns
  5. yesterday
  6. yesterday but one
  7. yesterday is gone
  8. Yesterday Island
  9. yesterday night
  10. yesterday's
  11. yesterday's fish and chips

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yesterday but one (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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Cite this entry: “yesterday but one.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yesterday_but_one. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.