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Synonyms

pride and joy

Idioms  

  1. The object of one's great pleasure, as in Our new grandson is our pride and joy, or Dana's car is his pride and joy. This term was probably invented by Sir Walter Scott in his poem Rokeby (1813), where he described children as “a mother's pride, a father's joy.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The almost-daily barrages, paired with the cold snap, have put lives at risk and created an unprecedented threat for Ivannikov's pride and joy: a collection of almost 4,000 species.

From Barron's • Feb. 12, 2026

You can take pride and joy in creating a home together, now that your remaining children have left or are about to leave the home.

From MarketWatch • Nov. 24, 2025

"To my daughter, you are my pride and joy", the prime minister wrote in an Instagram post, adding that he does his job for her generation.

From BBC • Mar. 8, 2025

“That is sort of my pride and joy, I think the best piece of work I’ve done,” she said.

From New York Times • Jun. 1, 2024

I brought him up to be my pride and joy...

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

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.