salad days

noun

a period of youthful inexperience:

a man who never lost the immature attitudes of his salad days.

Origin

1600-10

Examples from the web for salad days

Indeed the events of her later life were as dramatic as those of her salad days.
The salad days of summer are the payoff for living through months of rain.
But even if your salad days are long gone, your school days do not have to be.

British Dictionary definitions for salad days

salad days

plural noun

a period of youth and inexperience

Word Origin

allusion to Antony and Cleopatra (1.v.73) by William Shakespeare: ``my salad days When I was green in judgment, cold in blood''

salad days in Culture

salad days definition

A time of youth and inexperience; often, a better and more innocent time. The expression comes from William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, where Cleopatra says her early infatuation with Julius Caesar was foolish: “My salad days, when I was green in judgment.” (“Green” refers both to inexperience and to the color of a salad.)

Idioms and Phrases with salad days

salad days

The time of youth, innocence, and inexperience, as in Back in our salad days we went anywhere at night, never thinking about whether it was safe or not. This expression, alluding to the greenness of inexperience, was probably invented by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra (1:5), when Cleopatra, now enamored of Antony, speaks of her early admiration for Julius Caesar as foolish: “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood.”