behind the times

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behind the times

1. Behaving in an outdated or unpopular way. Of course grandpa doesn't have a cell phone—he's behind the times, as usual.

2. Lacking the latest information on a particular subject. Wait, Joe and Mara broke up? Wow, I'm behind the times!

See also: behind, times

behind the times

old-fashioned. Sarah is a bit behind the times. Her clothes are quite old-fashioned. Our 90—year-old state senator is a bit behind the times.

See also: behind, times

behind the times

Not keeping up with current fashion, methods, or ideas, as in Your accounting methods are behind the times. Charles Dickens used this idiom in Dombey and Son (1848): "I'm old-fashioned, and behind the Time." [Mid-1800s]

See also: behind, times

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

behind the times

Out-of-date; old-fashioned.

See also: behind, times

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

behind the times

Old-fashioned, outdated. From the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries this meaning was conveyed by behindhand. In the nineteenth century, however, it turned into the present locution, as in Dickens’s Dombey and Son (1846): “I’m old-fashioned and behind the time.”

See also: behind, times

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References in periodicals archive ?

Leave it to the National Education Association to be behind the times. Every year at their annual convention, they craft a lame resolution that denounces home educators.

Homeschoolers pass the torch: Meet three homeschooled Generation X couples who have learned how to succeed and who intend to pass on this legacy by teaching their own children at home. (Education)

UK Horizons is a couple of years behind the times, so only now offers viewers the chance to catch up with episodes first screened on BBC1 a couple of years ago.

Docusoap; MONDAY

They're already behind the times, as this small California site attests.

CYBERsurf

WHO SAYS COUNTRY FOLKS are behind the times on AIDS?

Annie get year Passport

And, if we are 20 years behind the times, it's about time to get started!

Learning from Sweden: A New Nursing Home for a New Century

The design and construction industry is behind the times in terms of e-business, Microsoft EMEA regional manager Lindsay Pomeroy told a gathering of corporate real estate executives at the IDRC World Congress held here.

Microsoft exec implores industry to support new technology

I believe we are way behind the times with regard to the way we render professional services by telephone, fax, email, and telemedicine.

Are we all just stupid?

According to The Sunday Times, British Airway`s `Mile High` club is somewhat behind the times also and should perhaps be renamed the 1.6km-high club, though admittedly much of the title`s impact is lost in the translation.

Roger and Out

A Stateline article in our December issue was behind the times when it reported the names of New Hampshire's three top legislative officials.

CORRECTION

If you have to get into a ceiling to pull wire for new tenants, you are way behind the times, says a panel of space planning experts at the recent realcom.99 conference in Chicago.

READY TO PLUG AND PLAY

STAMFORD, Conn.-Those who are still being awakened by buzzes, bells or a radio may feel behind the times in light of an introduction being made by Verilux Inc.

SOUND THERAPY SEES THE LIGHT; VERILUX INTRODUCES `NATURAL' ALARM CLOCK

Growth charts are behind the times. They significantly underestimated the weight of babies from birth to six-months old, and underestimate the length from birth to 12-months old.

Growing Growth Curves

Hayek was two centuries behind the times, a resident of Edinburgh rather than Paris, an exponent of bourgeois virtue rather than of a new aristocracy of experts.

Hayek on Hayek

Wareing said Ontario has been "behind the times" compared to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which have been producing gasahol for a decade.

Timiskaming grain a potential source of fuel

In the area that most interested me, magazine writing, the school was hopelessly behind the times. The New Journalism had been creating a stir since the late 1960s, and I was hoping to emulate my heroes, David Halberstam, Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Gay Talese.