Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

knee-high to a grasshopper

Idioms  

  1. Quite young, as in I haven't seen him since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. This hyperbolic expression, dating from about 1850 and alluding to someone's youth, replaced the earlier knee-high to a mosquito or bumblebee or splinter.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Purty soon it's dizzle-dazzle an' flippity-floppity an' splendiferous and sewperb, an' the first thing ye know ye ain't knee-high to a grasshopper.

From Darrel of the Blessed Isles by Bacheller, Irving

Whistler discoursed wittily, waspishly, but he wasn't knee-high to a grasshopper when confronted with Wilde.

From Unicorns by Huneker, James

Ever since you were knee-high to a grasshopper you had a knack for pitching hay.

From Ted and the Telephone by Stecher, William F. (William Frederick)

"Wonderin' is a habit I broke myself off of, when I wasn't knee-high to a grasshopper," she replied.

From Martha By-the-Day by Lippmann, Julie Mathilde

Raised right in the same town with him, from a kid knee-high to a grasshopper!

From Fore! by Loan, Charles Emmett Van

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.