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• simon-pure
  simon-pure

  adjective

  real; genuine.
• simon pure
  simon pure

  Absolutely genuine, quite authentic, as in That laboratory test was simon pure; none of the specimens was adulterated. This expression comes from the name of a character in a play, Susannah Centilivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717), who is the victim of an impersonation but turns up in the end and proves that he is “the real Simon Pure.”

simon-pure

American  

[sahy-muhn-pyoor] / ˈsaɪ mənˈpjʊər /

adjective

1. real; genuine.

   a simon-pure accent.

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simon-pure British  

adjective

1. real; genuine; authentic

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simon pure Idioms  

1. Absolutely genuine, quite authentic, as in That laboratory test was simon pure; none of the specimens was adulterated. This expression comes from the name of a character in a play, Susannah Centilivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717), who is the victim of an impersonation but turns up in the end and proves that he is “the real Simon Pure.”

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Etymology

Origin of simon-pure

1710–20; short for the real Simon Pure, alluding to the victim of impersonation in Susanna Centlivre's play A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

simon-pure simon pure

But the notion that small community banks are somehow simon-pure, in contrast to the risk-happy banks of the East and West Coasts, is ludicrous on its face.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2023

“The Kidnap Murder Case” is real, simon-pure Van Dine, and that should be good enough for anybody.

From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021

And Canadians, with their British-oriented sensibilities, were conscious of amateurism and the role that sport played among the simon-pure.

From New York Times ● Jun. 9, 2012

A simon-pure culture may sometimes, apparently from sheer perversity, change its nature.

From Time Magazine Archive

What is commonly, but improperly, called love is either pagan fondness or simon-pure egotism and self-love.

From Explanation of Catholic Morals A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals by Stapleton, John H. (John Henry)

Imitators of the magazine have turned up, but the Mercurians never fail to "distinguish between the simon pure article and the second best."

From Time Magazine Archive

All these truthful sayings have been preserved as proverbs simply because they are simon pure truths.

From Dollars and Sense by Hunter, William Crosbie

This man does not get in over four or five hours' simon pure hard work in a day.

From Dollars and Sense by Hunter, William Crosbie

The Nile of which you have read and along which are scattered the simon pure monuments of antiquity is the six hundred miles of winding river between Assouan, or First Cataract, and the sea.

From In Pastures New by Ade, George

There was one old chap in the town—Bill Budlong—who took a heap of pride in being the simon pure cuss.

From Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy." by Lorimer, George Horace