Meaning
Someone or something is old, worn, shabby, or in decline, and was once in far better condition. Originally said of people who had fallen from wealth or prosperity; today it is more often applied, jokingly or affectionately, to battered objects and places. Neutral to informal; now used mostly of objects, so applying it to a person can sound archaic or faintly insulting, since it implies faded prosperity. Often lightly humorous. Regional use: General English (Shakespearean allusion).
Origin
Shakespeare used it twice. In As You Like It (c. 1599), Act 2 Scene 7, Orlando pleads 'If ever you have look'd on better days' and Duke Senior replies 'True is it that we have seen better days.' In Timon of Athens, Act 4 Scene 2, the steward Flavius urges the household servants to utter 'We have seen better days' like a knell over their master's ruined fortunes. The earliest print record cited, however, predates both: the anonymous play Sir Thomas More (1590) has 'Hauing seene better dayes, now know the lack / Of glorie that once rearde eche high-fed back.' So the Phrase Finder's coined-by-Shakespeare label is antedated by its own citation. The original sense was of people formerly prosperous now impoverished; the softer modern application to objects is a later development.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- has seen better days
- have seen better days
- looked on better days
Usage Examples
- My rucksack has seen better days: one zip gone, both straps frayed, and a faint smell of old tents.
- The seaside pavilion has seen better days, but the marquee still lights up for the Friday band.
- These boots have seen better days, she admitted, as the sole flapped loose on the wet pavement.