Meanings
- dialectalnot comparableDay before yesterday.
"Yesterday but one [the day before yesterday], I bought a kilo of beans at 4,000 [shillings]. Yesterday, I came back and it was 5,000."
2020 April 21, “How Uganda’s history of epidemics has prepared it for COVID-19” (4:49 from the start), in PBS NewsHour, Michael Baleke (actor), WETA-TV, via Public Broadcasting Service1 more example
"Yesterday but one I located a number of them twisted matches in the floor sweepings of the Slade Arms; an' all that evenin' I sat there, watchin' the different men that came in an' had a drink an' a smoke; but I couldn't get onto no one. …"
1917, William Hope Hodgson, The Mystery of Captain Chappel
Origin
From yesterday + but (“except for”) + one https://www.observer.ug/lifestyle/42-entertainment/44856-kataaha-has-to-sort-out-the-cracks-in-english
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
yesterday but one. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yesterday%20but%20one
“yesterday but one.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yesterday%20but%20one. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “yesterday but one,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yesterday%20but%20one.
Source: yesterday but one on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.