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Idiom: 'from pillar to post'



 
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Idiom: 'from pillar to post' #1 (permalink) Thu Nov 02, 2006 16:04 pm   Idiom: 'from pillar to post'
 

Hi

Online dictionaries give the meaning of the idiom as:

Quote:
Adv.1.from pillar to post - from one place or situation to another;
"we were driven from pillar to post"
hither and thither

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/from+pillar+to+post
http://dict.die.net/from%20pillar%20to%20post/
...

But my English-Russian dictionary also gave as an acceptable equivalents, with quite differ (second) meaning:
'out of the frying pan into the fire' , from bad to worse, and the like.

I’ve found just a few universal dictionaries that add this meaning ('from one disaster to another').

If it was dogs driven from pillar to post there'd be an uproar. - the first meaning, clearly.

People have just had enough being thrown from pillar to post. – probably, the second.

Policemen of twenty to twenty-five years' service were harassed from pillar to post in the hunt for improved returns of charges and summonses – ?
Which one would you suppose here?
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Idiom: 'from pillar to post' #2 (permalink) Thu Nov 02, 2006 16:42 pm   Idiom: 'from pillar to post'
 

Hi Tamara

I'd never heard the expression "from pillar to post" before... even though I see that it's got an entry in both the American Heritage Dictionary and Webster's . :shock:

Webster's gives this definition:
from one place or one predicament to another

Amy
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Idiom: 'from pillar to post' #3 (permalink) Thu Nov 02, 2006 19:43 pm   Idiom: 'from pillar to post'
 

from pillar to post

Meaning:
· If something is going from pillar to post, it is moving around in a meaningless way,
from one disaster to another.

Category:
· General
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/from+pillar+to+post.html

Quote:
Phrase pillar to post is c.1600, originally of tennis, exact meaning obscure.
:)
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=from+pillar+to+post&searchmode=none

… Thanks, Amy.
Actually, I’ve now found what I was seeking.
I luckily happened to be not the unique person on the Internet, who asked the question. :)

One (old) reason for my question was that in my first language the saying ‘from one disaster to another’ (из огня да в полымя) is quite popular :)

Another one (more fresh :)) – my today’s encounter with the phrase
‘His wife was described as a ‘pillar of the community’.
… :)
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