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Under someone's thumb

Posted by ESC on August 26, 2004

In Reply to: Filthy = money posted by ESC on August 26, 2004

: : : : please can someone help me find the meaning of filthy rich and under the thumb (i think filthy rich has something to do with the miners...please help thanks

: : : Maybe the mine owners were filthy rich. The miners got black lung and were put out of their company-owned houses when they could no longer work.

: : Here's a guess. Maybe it has to do with this expression:

: : FILTHY LUCRE - ".It comes from the New Testament (I Timothy 3:2-3), in which the qualifications of a bishop are set forth: 'A bishop then must be blameless.of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre.' The word 'filthy' in the Biblical sense means 'dishonorable,' rather than dirty or unclean. So filthy lucre really means 'dishonorable gain.'" From Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988). ".when William Tyndale translated the New Testament from Greek to English in 1525, he mistranslated Paul's figurative expression 'dishonorable gain' as 'filthy lucre.' Paul's words didn't mean 'dirty money,' but the phrase was retained by the authors of the great King James Version of the Bible in 1611 and soon entered English as a term for money in general, no matter how honorably earned." From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

: filthy -- (short for filthy lucre) money. 1925 Riesenberg "Under Sail" 346 (reference to 1898): "I made friends among a fast bunch, spent the filthy." From Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, A-G by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1994.

UNDER SOMEONE'S THUMB -- Under the influence or power of a person. From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable revised by Adrian Room (HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1999, Sixteenth Edition).

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