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Glite Dictionary
to know someone from Eve

to know someone from Eve

1 9.9
Not to know a person at all
  • idiom
  • UK
translation icon : no conocer de nada a alguien
  • I can't recommend him; I don't know him from Eve.

Examples

  • She walked into the meeting and realized she didn't know anyone from Eve.

  • I don't know someone from Eve!

  • We talked for hours, but before tonight, I didn't know her from Eve.

  • Why would I know someone from Eve?

  • I don't know her from Eve, so I can't trust her advice.

  • He acts like he knows me, but honestly, he doesn't know me from Eve.

  • When she walked in, I realized I didn't know him from Eve.

Synonyms

to know (someone) from Adam
vsto know someone from Eve
  • UK
1 9.4

To have no idea who a person is at all

is the same idea expressed with a different idiom
to know someone from a can of paint
vsto know someone from Eve
  • Informal
9.9

To not recognize someone at all because you have never met them

is the same idea but uses another colloquial phrase

How Familiar

to know
∞ 1.0
to know someone from Eve
  • UK
1 9.9

Surface Forms

know someone from Eve infinitive
knowing someone from Eve present participle
knows someone from Eve third person singular
knew someone from Eve past
known someone from Eve past participle

Morphology

know + someone + from + Eve

The idiomatic sense 'to have no familiarity with someone' cannot be derived from the literal parts: a B1 learner would read 'from Eve' as indicating origin or relation to a person named Eve, not as meaning 'not at all'. This phrase is an idiomatic/archaic construction (related to 'not know someone from Adam') and so its intended meaning is unpredictable from the constituents.

Etymology

Know someone from Eve may come from the Bible story of the first people, Adam and Eve. Saying you 'don't know someone from Eve' makes the person seem as unknown as those first people, so it means 'to not know someone at all'.