dry behind the ears
- idiom
- Informal
:
inexperto
- She, Gracia, hasn't the slightest intention of taking the felt off the rugs and the slipcovers off the couch for a few young fools or doctors' assistants who aren't even dry behind the ears yet.
Examples
-
Although she was enthusiastic, her lack of experience made it clear that she was dry behind the ears.
-
Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country.
Blog text (9) -
"This child knight, scarcely dry behind the ears, comes riding into my camp and he wants to know if I need my horse.
Fiction book (1991) -
He is still a bit dry behind the ears in his new job, needing guidance on how to handle client issues.
-
The young intern was dry behind the ears, often making mistakes that a seasoned professional would not.
Synonyms
30
4.4
New and without much experience in a job or activity
5
8.3
Not very experienced or confident yet
1
7.5
A person who does not know much yet about a job or task
1
6.5
Not skilled at a task or subject
Antonyms
How Experienced
3
3.5
138
2.1
114
3.6
- Informal
312
4.1
96
4.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
dry + behind + the + ears
The sense 'inexperienced' cannot be straightforwardly derived from the literal meanings of 'dry', 'behind' and 'ears' — nothing about ear dryness or location transparently signals immaturity. This is an idiomatic, culturally conditioned phrase (usually seen as 'wet/dry behind the ears') so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the idiomatic meaning.
Etymology
Dry behind the ears comes from the same image as the saying 'wet behind the ears' — newborn babies and young animals are wet when they are born, so being 'wet' meant you were new and untried. People use dry behind the ears to point to that idea of still being new or naive, so the phrase means 'inexperienced'.