Jump To:

• 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.

---

simon-pure British  

adjective

1. real; genuine; authentic

---

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.”

---

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

Military policy, said Johnson, was "being influenced by the State Department prior to a simon-pure decision by Defense."

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

This," shaking the amber liquid, "is simon pure; best French.

From Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter by Lynch, Lawrence L.

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

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

From Dollars and Sense by Hunter, William Crosbie

It is only the simon pure immortal who will not have to get up at the sound of Gabriel’s trump.

From The Unpopular Review, Number 19 July-December 1918 by Various