English

Alternative forms

• outherod

Verb

to out-Herod ‎(third-person singular simple present out-Herods, present participle out-Heroding, simple past and past participle out-Heroded)

1. To surpass in evil and cruelty (originally and chiefly with Herod as direct object). [from 17th c.]
   • 1604, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, First Folio 1621, III.2:

     I could haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing Termagant: it outHerod's Herod. Pray you auoid it.

   • 1948, E. M. Butler, The Myth of the Magus:

     nor is his tone anything like so venomous as Carlyle's in that unpleasing essay on Cagliostro, in which he threw all decency to the winds and out-Heroded the Inquisition whilst ranting against it.

   • 1989, Harry Levin, "Putting Pound Together", New York Review of Books, 9 Nov 1989:

     The farther and the longer away from his native country, the more he out-Heroded Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby.

Derived terms

• out-Herod Herod