Word-Built World: Adam and Evve

Adam and Eve (between 1597 & 1600) Art: Peter Paul Rubens

A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg

Last month, when I featured a week of kings who became words one of those was Herod. I had mentioned that the Massacre of the Innocents is generally considered apocryphal.

A reader challenged me with Matthew 2:16. When I pointed out historians’ skepticism, he quickly admitted some Biblical tales may be more allegory than fact.

I’ve read the Bible and I was struck by how many vivid idioms have seeped into English. This week, we’ll unpack five of them.

Adam and Eve

PRONUNCIATION:

(AD-uhm uhn/uhnd EEV) 

MEANING:

noun:
1. A beginning.
2. A set of ancestors or founders.

ETYMOLOGY:

After the first humans in the Biblical account. Earliest documented use: 1789. See also: Adam’s ale and adamite.

USAGE:

“If we grant that the Adam and Eve of American poetry, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, invented the modern poetic sequence … then it seems natural that every American poet since has at least attempted a long poem to contend with and extend the work of their progenitors.”
Jeffrey Skinner; Writing the Poetic Sequence; The Writer (Manchester, UK); Feb 1994.

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