Word.ws English Dictionary

you can't put an old head on young shoulders

you can't put an old head on young shoulders noun: young people inevitably lack the experience and wisdom which come with age.

Noun

you can't put an old head on young shoulders

  1. Young people inevitably lack the experience and wisdom which come with age.
    • "The boy seems to me a very good boy, but you can't put an old head on young shoulders."1890, Horatio Alger, chapter 30, in Driven From Home
    • "Young men will be young men; you can't put an old head on young shoulders," he added, repeating trite sayings as if they were original with himself.1901, Pauline E. Hopkins, Hagar's Daughter, ch. 25 (Google preview) (in The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins, Oxford, 1990)

Examples of you can't put an old head on young shoulders in a sentence

  • You can't put an old head on young shoulders.1970 April 1, Punch Imlach, “In crystal ball, Bruins get nod for first place”, in Windsor Star, Canada, retrieved 11 Dec 2012, page 33:
  • As the old saying goes, you can't put an old head on young shoulders."2010 December 14, Dean Ritchie, “Gutted Eels are left reeling”, in Herald Sun, Australia, retrieved 11 Dec 2012:
  • In those days I looked down on Stephens and repeated Russell's verdict with derision; which shows not only that you can't put an old head on young shoulders but that you shouldn't try.2011, Frank O'Connor, “Introduction to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, in The Best of Frank O'Connor, →ISBN, page 183:

Synonyms of you can't put an old head on young shoulders

Questions about you can't put an old head on young shoulders

What does you can't put an old head on young shoulders mean?
You can't put an old head on young shoulders means young people inevitably lack the experience and wisdom which come with age.
How do you use you can't put an old head on young shoulders in a sentence?
You can't put an old head on young shoulders.
What part of speech is you can't put an old head on young shoulders?
You can't put an old head on young shoulders is a noun.

Words near you can't put an old head on young shoulders in the dictionary

  1. you can't outrun your fork
  2. you can't polish a turd
  3. you can't polish shit
  4. you can't pour from an empty cup
  5. you can't put a wise head on young shoulders
  6. you can't put an old head on young shoulders
  7. you can't put the shit back in the horse
  8. you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube
  9. you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube
  10. you can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
  11. you can't say fairer than that

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: you can't put an old head on young shoulders (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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