out-Herod

Con O'Neill as the roaring, bisexual tetrarch is not afraid to out-Herod Herod.

Salome 2010

“The motives which prompted the legislature to lay aside its conservatism and take this new departure were, so far as can be judged, an ambition to immortalize themselves and out-Herod Herod.”

THE AMERICAN WEST DEE BROWN 2007

We now witness the entrance, into politics, of alpha females like Ms. Coulter who borrow the "by any means necessary" ethos from their Republican male counterparts and, in essence, out-Herod, Herod.

Beneath Contempt 2007

I scarcely think he would put his money in the Savings Bank after all; I doubt if he would be such an admirable son as we are led to expect; and as for his conduct in love, I believe firmly he would out-Herod Herod, and put the whole of his new compeers to the blush.

Virginibus Puerisque and other papers 2005

We wish some of the criticism in this chapter had been milder, and a few of the invectives not so highly charged; some of them even out-Herod the fury of an article on Painting, in a recent number of the _Edinburgh

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 382, July 25, 1829 Various

I should like to out-Herod that puppy Rowland, and make a saint of myself out of a sinner.

Gladys, the Reaper Anne Beale

'The Adoration of the Magi' (_Scene 17_) introduces us to a very notable person, no other than Herod, the model of each 'robustious periwig-pated fellow' who on the stage would 'tear a passion to tatters, to very rags', and so out-herod Herod.

The Growth of English Drama Arnold Wynne

Noah's wife, for example, came regularly to be presented as a shrew, who would not enter the ark until she had been beaten into submission; and Herod always appears as a blustering tyrant, whose fame still survives in a proverb of Shakspere's coinage -- 'to out-Herod Herod.'

A History of English Literature Robert Huntington Fletcher

Nay, we are usually a little _too_ faithful, and fairly 'out-Herod Herod.'

The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2 Various

The shyest of men can sometimes out-Herod Herod if not obliged to face their listeners in person.

Ted and the Telephone Sara Ware Bassett 1920