First recorded in 1865–70
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Iranian passion play is a recurring motif, both on the stage and in the streets.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 1, 2022
“We play the passion play every 10 years — that’s the tradition,” he said.
From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
“But we have an endless desire to bring our passion play back to the stage and we are highly motivated.”
From Seattle Times ● May 7, 2022
He is our voracious, inescapable character, like someone out of Saul Bellow or Paddy Chayefsky, a looming, blustery presence who has turned “Saturday Night Live” into a rollicking, national passion play.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2019
The result was a series of entertainments varying from a strawberry festival to the "passion play" illustrated.
From The Tangled Threads by Porter, Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman)
Early successes include the groundbreaking Passion play in Port Talbot with Michael Sheen in 2011, which lasted three days and attracted 25,000 spectators.
From BBC ● Dec. 18, 2024
"Superstar" is structured similarly to a traditional Christian Passion play, depicting Jesus' final days.
From Salon ● Apr. 16, 2022
It was the fifty-eighth anniversary of the operation, which ended in catastrophe; the annual commemoration has become a kind of Miami Passion play.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 29, 2019
He went on to form a production company that would produce the L.A. premiere of “Corpus Christi,” Terrence McNally’s gay Passion play, and other shows in small theaters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2017
I had always rather wanted to see the Passion play, but the thought of the fashionable Ober-Ammergau made me sick.
From Dreamers of the Ghetto by Zangwill, Israel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
