YESTERDAY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does yesterday mean? 

• YESTERDAY (noun)
  The noun YESTERDAY has 2 senses:

1. the day immediately before today

2. the recent past

  Familiarity information: YESTERDAY used as a noun is rare.

• YESTERDAY (adverb)
  The adverb YESTERDAY has 2 senses:

1. on the day preceding today

2. in the recent past; only a short time ago

  Familiarity information: YESTERDAY used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• YESTERDAY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The day immediately before today

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

it was in yesterday's newspapers

Hypernyms ("yesterday" is a kind of...):

24-hour interval; day; mean solar day; solar day; twenty-four hour period; twenty-four hours (time for Earth to make a complete rotation on its axis)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The recent past

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

we shared many yesterdays

Hypernyms ("yesterday" is a kind of...):

past; past times; yesteryear (the time that has elapsed)

• YESTERDAY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

On the day preceding today

Context example:

yesterday the weather was beautiful

Sense 2

Meaning:

In the recent past; only a short time ago

Context example:

I was not born yesterday!

 Context examples 

But why didn’t the police see this mark yesterday?

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I left her and Bath yesterday, never to see either again.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

"Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday."

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

It was only yesterday that the chance came.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I could not tell what she would be at yesterday.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I had a bright idea yesterday, and this is it.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"But YOU fired yesterday," said Summerlee.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“We were talking about this yesterday,” he said.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)