Sodom
(ˈsɒdəm)
[The name of the early city beside the Dead Sea, the wickedness and destruction of which are recorded in Gen. xviii-xix.
The Hebrew form of the name is S'dōm; the Sept. has σόδοµα, the Vulg. Sodoma, neut. pl. and fem. sing.]
1. An extremely wicked or corrupt place. Freq. coupled with Gomorrah (see Gomorrhean a. and n.), the name of the other of the two wicked cities of the plain in Gen. xviii–xix.
| 1649 C. Walker Relat. & Obs. ii. 257 To the prejudice of our other New States-men, and their New erected Sodomes and Spintries at the Mulbury-garden at S. James's. a 1704 T. Brown Walk r. London, A Tavern Wks. 1709 III. iii. 3 A Tavern is a little Sodom, where as many Vices are daily practic'd, as ever were known in the great one. 1782 J. Brown Nat. & Revealed Relig. v. iv. 461 How could he dwell in a dead carcase, a Sodom of filthiness? 1862 Queen Victoria Let. 7 June in R. Fulford Dearest Mama (1968) 67 It was intended he should come home through Paris stopping only a day in order to have got over his visit to that Sodom and Gomorrah. 1864 Trollope Can you forgive Her? I. xxiii. 179, I always regarded the States as a Sodom and Gomorrah, prospering in wickedness. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 11 Sept. 8/1 Two, even in this military Sodom, had the courage to proclaim Dreyfus innocent. 1972 I. Hamilton Thrill Machine xv. 63 It wasn't exactly Sodom and Gomorrah—the ladies kept their clothes on. 1974 Listener 24 Jan. 121/3 Heliogabalus..reduced Rome to a kind of post-Christian Sodom and Gomorrah. |
2. Sodom apple. a. Apple of Sodom (see apple n. 3). So † Sodom-fruit. Also U.S., the horse-nettle, Solanum carolinense.
| 1615 R. Brathwait Strappado (1878) 48 See painted Sodom⁓apples faire to th' eye, But being tutcht they perish instantly. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 237 They are Sodome Apples, enduring the Eye, not the Touch. 1706 in Phillips (ed. Kersey). [1736 J. Bancks Young's Last Day 22 Through life we chase, with fond pursuit, What mocks our hope, like Sodom's fruit.] 1738 M. Green Spleen 33 And Sodom-fruit our pains deceives. 1855 Mrs. Gaskell North & S. iv, The mocking way in which over-fond wishes are too often fulfilled—Sodom apples as they are. 1905 W. J. Rolfe Shaks. Sonn. 19 The ashes to which the Sodom-apples of illicit love are turned in the end. |
† b. A variety of cider-apple. Obs.
| 1676 Worlidge Cyder (1691) 212 The Sodome-apple or Bloudy pippin is a fruit of more than ordinary dark colour. |
3. Sodom egg-plant (see quot. and cf. 2 a).
| 1842 Penny Cycl. XXII. 196/1 Solanum Sodomeum, Sodom egg-plant, or apple of Sodom. |