gall and wormwood
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
Extremely disagreeable and annoying. . And I said, My strength and my nope is perished from the Lord: Remembering my affliction _and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. — Lam. iii, 18, 19.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “gall and wormwood” mean?
Extremely disagreeable and annoying. . And I said, My strength and my nope is perished from the Lord: Remembering my affliction _and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. — Lam. iii, 18, 19.
Is “gall and wormwood” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.