Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In the phrase to out-herod Herod, to be more violent than Herod (as represented in the old mystery plays); hence, to exceed in any excess of evil.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To surpass (Herod) in violence or wickedness; to exceed in any vicious or offensive particular. Compare outpope the pope.
WordNet 3.0
- v. surpass someone in cruelty or evil
Examples
“Simon-Pure Southerner from the very fact of their nativity, and visited with the most horrible retribution wherever they have shown a leaning toward the land of their birth, they find it necessary to out-herod”
The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 Devoted to Literature and National Policy
“(For Virgil and Nativity play and prophecy see authorities in Comparetti, "Virgil in Middles Ages", p. 310 sqq.) "To out-herod Herod", i.e. to over-act, dates from”
“Every man’s invention seemed on the stretch, and each extravagant simile seemed to set one half of your men of wit into a brown study to produce something which should out-herod it.””
“Every man's invention seemed on the stretch, and each extravagant simile seemed to set one half of your men of wit into a brown study to produce something which should out-herod it. ”
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