a legendary character condemned to roam without rest because he struck Christ on the day of the Crucifixion.
Also called inch plant. Also wandering Jew, Wandering-jew any of various trailing or creeping plants, as Zebrina pendula or Tradescantia fluminensis, having green or variegated leaves: a popular houseplant.
any of several related creeping or trailing plants of tropical America, esp Tradescantia fluminensis and Zebrina pendula: family Commelinaceae
a similar creeping plant of the genus Commelina
First recorded in 1625–35
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By contrast, the mythical figure of the Wandering Jew was condemned to roam the earth without rest until the second coming of Christ.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
But when we encounter this man in folklore, he’s known by another, more familiar name: the Wandering Jew.
From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2022
While Rohmer’s stories occasionally hint that Moris Klaw could be the Wandering Jew, Simon Ark actually appears to be centuries-old, a former Coptic priest who travels the world combating satanic evil.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 8, 2020
"The days of the Wandering Jew are at an end," Bergman tells Craig.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 21, 2013
The Popish flood, which Eugene Sue is trying to dam, or the flood occasioned by the sale of the Wandering Jew in New York and elsewhere?
From Auricular Confession and Popish Nunneries Volumes I. and II., Complete by Hogan, William
The biographical details may come from the author’s grandfather, but the character seems decidedly larger-than-life, a cross between Bruce Wayne, a Japanese ronin and an archetypal wandering Jew.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
When I’ve had the opportunity, as a wandering Jew, to visit the houses of worship of friends, I’ve never felt much in danger of conversion.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2024
But the sight of columns of Palestinian refugees trudging down the roadside sickened her, evoking her parents’ stories of European persecutions and the resonance of the homeless, wandering Jew.
From The New Yorker ● May 27, 2017
It was the Friday during Passover, and like any wandering Jew, I wanted a Sabbath meal.
From New York Times ● May 22, 2010
Did you ever hear of the wandering Jew, sir?”
From Dead Man's Land Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain blacks and whites by Wood, Stanley L.
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.
