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Yesterday is a temporal construct of the relative past; literally of the day before today, or figuratively of earlier periods or times, often but not always within living memory.
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Philosophy
Philosophers have treated "yesterday" in various ways including as a relative but distinct concept of time. For example, John Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1760 treated the concept of "yesterday" as follows:
In Chinese philosophy also the meaning of "today" and "yesterday" is relative to contexts.
In the rhetoric of history "yesterday" can refer to the life framework of a past era, such as the example in literature of memory recalled from a previous, but now lost, lifestyle or society, such as recent colonial life.
Learning and language
The concepts of "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow" are among the first relative time concepts acquired by infants. In language a distinctive noun or adverb for "yesterday" is present in most but not all languages, though languages with ambiguity in vocabulary also have other ways to distinguish the immediate past and immediate future. "Yesterday" is also a relative term and concept in grammar and syntax.