Avoid like the plague

Posted by Smokey Stover on May 26, 2009 at 21:55

In Reply to: Avoid like the plague posted by Robert on May 25, 2009 at 18:57:

: I'm looking for the origin of the phrase "avoid it like the plague"

Origin is such an ambiguous word. The phrase is plain English, so there's no doubt as to how it might have come into use. As to that, the Oxford English Dictionary has found it being used in the 17th century, but there's nothing to say it was not in use earlier. The examples cited by the OED from before the 19th century are:

"1699 W. PENN Some Fruits of Solitude (ed. 5) §257. 82 An able bad Man, is an ill Instrument, and to be shunn'd as the Plague. 1703 M. CHUDLEIGH Song of Three Children in Poems Several Occasions, Those Ills we court, which we as Plagues shou'd shun. 1835 T. MOORE in Byron Wks. XV. 133 Saint Augustine..avoided the school as the plague. 1896 A. R. WHITE Youth's Educator xi. 130 Young ladies would shun slang phrases as they would the plague."

And now we are plagued by phrases coming from the mouths of young ladies that it would be truly broad-minded to call no worse than slang.
SS