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These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'salad days.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
A good salad is fresh, crisp, and usually green. Those attributes are often associated (in both vegetables and people) with vitality and immaturity. The first English writer known to use salad days to associate the fresh greenness of salad with the vigor and recklessness of youth was William Shakespeare. In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra praises Marc Antony's valor and demands that her serving woman do the same. When the servant instead praises her former consort, Caesar, Cleopatra threatens her - until the woman notes that she is only echoing Cleopatra's own effusive past praise of Caesar. Cleopatra's reply marks the first English use of salad days:
"My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then."
1606
shriveling (or shrivelling), wilting, withering;
blooming, blossoming, efflorescence, flowering;
acme, apex, climax, meridian, peak, pinnacle, summit, zenith;
belle epoque (or belle époque), golden age, silver age;
: the period of life when someone is young and does not have much experience
: an early period of success
Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for salad days
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