Good riddance

Meaning

An expression of pleasure on being rid of some annoyance - usually an individual.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, 1609:

THERSITES: I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.
PATROCLUS: A good riddance.

The phrase is often extended and emphasized as to good riddance to bad rubbish, or as it was first coined good riddance of bad rubbish. Tobias Smollett used the phrase in a, none too friendly, review, in The Critical Review, 1805:

But we are sorry ... to consider Mr. Pratt's writings as 'purely evil' ... we should really look upon this author's departure from the world of literature as a good riddance to bad rubbish.

The American journalist and member of President Andrew Jackson's 'Kitchen Cabinet', Francis Preston Blair, wrote an editorial in The Extra Globe, 1841. In this he appears to have been the first to use the version of the phrase most commonly used now:

[Following the withdrawal of members of a rival advisory group] From the bottom of our hearts we are disposed to exclaim "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

See other phrases and sayings from Shakespeare.