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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

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

Let's not delude ourselves by suggesting that we have been simon-pure.

From Time Magazine Archive

Barons, too, were scarce, and who loves a baron—provided he is not an American "baron"—any more than the simon-pure Yankee?

From Charred Wood by Shepherd, J. Clinton