pearl of great price

Cultural  

1. A phrase from one of the parables of Jesus; he compares the journey to heaven to a search for fine pearls conducted by a merchant, “who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

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The expression has come to mean anything that is very valuable. For example, Hester Prynne, in The Scarlet Letter, who gave birth to a daughter following an act of adultery that destroyed her honor, named the child Pearl, because she had given up all that she had in bearing the child.

Example Sentences

Last year, Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a pearl of great price — the announcement of the relocation of the U.S.

From Washington Post

The central image of the poem is taken from the Book of Matthew, in which Jesus says that “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

From The New Yorker

Though Smith’s first book of revelations, the Book of Mormon, clearly states that “the Lord denieth none that come unto him, black and white,” in The Pearl of Great Price, Smith’s later translation of revelations supposedly made to Moses and Abraham, he took a dimmer view.

From Time

From the beginning, I felt it, snug inside my heart, the pearl of great price.

From Literature

“That’s our pearl of great price; you know, without it, we’re nothing.”

From Literature