salad days

Meanings

1. 1phrasepluralold-fashionedliterary

   The years of youth when someone has little experience but plenty of energy and hope, often remembered fondly.

   Grammar: Always plural; takes a plural verb and a possessive: in my salad days.

   Patterns

   • in someone's salad days
   • the salad days of something

   In my salad days I hitchhiked across Europe with almost no money.

   The old musician smiled as he remembered his salad days in the clubs of Chicago.

   Those were her salad days, before the worries of a career.

2. 2phrasepluralfigurative

   The most successful, happy or fruitful early period in the life of a business, person or movement.

   Grammar: Often used with the of something: the salad days of rock.

   Patterns

   • the salad days of something

   The salad days of the dot-com boom ended suddenly.

   The studio looked back fondly on its salad days in the 1950s.

Common combinations

in my salad days

In my salad days I knew nothing about money.

her salad days

Her salad days were spent traveling.

the salad days of

The salad days of radio are gone.

remember one's salad days

He liked to remember his salad days.

Synonyms and how they differ

heyday

Heyday means the peak of success, while salad days suggests youthful inexperience as well.

youth

Youth is a plain word for the time of being young and is not nostalgic.

prime

Prime means the best period of life, and it does not suggest naivety like salad days.

golden age

Golden age describes a great period for a culture or industry, not a person's early years.

Opposites

Word family

salad noun

a dish of raw vegetables, the source of the idea of fresh green youth

green adjective

young or inexperienced

Commonly confused: salad days or halcyon days?

Practice

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Write a sentence using “salad days”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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