or salad stage, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The days of youthful simplicity; inexperience.

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  1608.  SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5, 73.

          Cleo.            My SALAD DAYS;
When I was green in judgment.

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  1892.  T. A. GUTHRIE (‘F. Anstey’), Voces Populi, ‘At a Parisian Café Chantant,’ 85. The diners in the gallery at the back have passed THE SALAD STAGE.

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  1893.  Chambers’s Journal, 25 Feb., 125. Having in his SALAD DAYS made trial of a cheap cigar, the result somehow satisfied him that tobacco was not in his line.

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