yestreen
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English yestreen, alteration of yestereven (“last night, yesterday evening”), from Old English ġiestranǣfen (“yesterday evening”), equivalent to yester- + e'en (“evening”). Cognate with West Frisian justerjûn (“yestreen; last night”).
Noun edit
yestreen (plural yestreens)
- (chiefly archaic, poetic or Scotland) The night before.
- 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Rob Roy. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 95:
- It was the creature Dougal that extricated me, as he did yestreen […] .
- 1917, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, chapter IV, in Piccadilly Jim[1], New York: Dodd, Mead and Company:
- "Well, it's a funny thing, but I can't get rid of the impression that at some point in my researches into the night life of London yestreen I fell upon some person to whom I had never been introduced and committed mayhem upon his person."
- 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
- You have not forgotten our telephone conversation of yestreen, Jeeves?
Synonyms edit
- see list in yestereve
Scots edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English yestereven (“yesterday evening”).
Noun edit
yestreen (plural yestreens)
- yesterday evening, the night before
Adverb edit
yestreen (not comparable)
- last night, yesterday