the other day
267
1.7
- idiom
:
el otro día
- I offered him a job the other day.
- said the other day
- told me the other day
- heard the other day
Now, I paid for two day shipping the other day for Ashley's cookies.
- Now, I paid for two day shipping the other day for Ashley's cookies.
- I was just driving it the other day and parked it up.
- I I saw a photo the other day from ancient Egypt.
- But then I saw this online the other day and it is genius.
- He told me the other day, get married right now.
- I told my daughter the other day she got a friend.
- No, no, the other day I think he knew that.
- Somebody said to me the other day, liberalism has failed.
- Recently, there was a suicide just the other day on Yale's campus.
- Hey, look, I was thinking the other day, what is your SPS?
- And the other day I happened to see this.
- Ethan did a TikTok the other day where he put it in front.
- So I read an article the other day about some really fancy people.
Examples
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I stopped the other day to get gas.
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I came across the following the other day from Governor Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts.
Academic text (1994) -
"Just wanted to tell you how nice it was seeing you the other day," the male voice said.
Fiction book (1997) -
Went to chapters the other day and bought a stack of books.
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Strangely enough, I was thinking of you just the other day.
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I was on a New York City commuter train the other day, listening to a couple of teens talking.
Academic text (2009) -
I stopped the other day to get gas.
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Well, I saw him in the street the other day.
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Did you read what happened the other day?
Synonyms
Antonyms
How Distant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase 'the other day' is compositionally built from 'the' + 'other' + 'day' and can be interpreted as 'a day other than today,' conventionally understood as a recent past day. This use is common cross-linguistically (e.g. Spanish 'el otro día', French 'l'autre jour'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will very likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The other day comes from the simple idea of two days side by side: today and the other day a short time before. So when people say it, they mean 'a few days ago'.