UK, 1844—extreme meanness never made anyone better off—compare Book of Proverbs, 11:24: “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.”
Read Morebe totally focused on your objective—USA — already well established in 1932—originated in the image of God’s watchful eye upon the sparrow, with reference to the gospel of Matthew, 10:29-32
Read MoreUSA, 1868—coined by U.S. critic Richard Grant White (1822-1885) to denote a word or expression whose original acceptation (preserved in U.S. English) was changed to one that he regarded as debased
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UK, 1906—used by a workman asked to lift too heavy an object—‘Simpson’ chosen for its similarity with ‘Samson’, the name of a biblical hero of enormous strength
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USA, 1885—humorous alteration of ‘many are called (but) few are chosen’, which refers to The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (gospel of Matthew, 20:1-16)
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16th century—exclamation of annoyance at the reappearance of someone or something—from bear-leaders’ regular visits or from story of Elisha and the bears
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UK, 18th and 19th centuries—‘trunkmaker’ was often employed with allusion to the use of the sheets of unsaleable books for trunk-linings
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site of a nuclear power station accident (1986)—name associated with the end of the world in the Bible—epithet for Disneyland Paris, seen as a cultural disaster
Read Morechurchyard—from German ‘Gottesacker’, literally ‘God’s field’—image of the bodies of the dead sown like seeds in order to bear fruit at the time of resurrection
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UK, 1753—the largest share—alludes to Genesis, 43:34, where Benjamin receives the largest portion of food from his brother Joseph
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