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Jul 14, 2025
This week’s themeBiblical idioms This week’s words 
Adam and Eve (between 1597 & 1600)
Art: Peter Paul Rubens Previous week’s theme Words related to colors 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargLast 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. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Literature encourages tolerance -- bigots and fanatics seldom have any use
for the arts, because they're so preoccupied with their beliefs and actions
that they can't see them also as possibilities. -Northrop Frye, writer and
critic (14 Jul 1912-1991)
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