‘Talk of the devil’ is said when someone who has just come up in conversation appears in person, phones, or otherwise makes contact at that exact moment. Nobody using it now believes they have summoned anyone; it is simply a light comment on a striking coincidence. The wording can also stretch beyond people, marking any topic that unexpectedly becomes present just as it is being discussed.
What’s the origin of the phrase ‘talk of the devil’?
The phrase is a shortened form of a longer superstitious warning, that speaking of the Devil would cause him to actually appear. Naming him was once treated as genuinely risky, on a par with the old prohibition on speaking the name of God, so people avoided saying “the Devil” directly and used euphemisms instead. The saying grew out of that same caution: to talk of him carelessly was to invite him to your side.
The earliest recorded English version is found in Giovanni Torriano’s Piazza Universale of 1666, which states: “The English say, Talk of the Devil, and he’s presently at your elbow.” This is the “talk” form rather than “speak”, and that older wording remains the more common one in Britain, even though ‘Speak of the Devil’ has become the dominant version in wider English usage.
The shift from literal warning to the ironic, joking use we know today happened early. By 1721, James Kelly’s Scottish Proverbs had already explained the figurative sense, using it to mark a coincidence rather than to express real alarm at the Devil’s arrival. That is essentially how the phrase still works: the fear has gone, but the structure of the old warning survives as a stock remark for a well-timed appearance. Over time its use has widened further still, so that it can be said not only when a person turns up but whenever a subject of conversation itself unexpectedly turns up, whether that is an event, an object, or a piece of news.