• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Zippy Facts Logo

Zippy Facts

Interesting Random Facts

  • Animals
  • Culture
  • Firsts
  • Food
  • Geography
  • Health
  • History
  • Inventions
  • Language
  • Mythology
  • Odds
  • People
  • Religion
  • Science
  • Space
  • Universe
  • World
You are here: Home / Language / What does the expression “as poor as Job’s turkey” mean and Where does it come from?

What does the expression “as poor as Job’s turkey” mean and Where does it come from?

August 2, 2020 by Karen Hill

Judge Haliburton, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, has about vanished from the memories of most Americans as one of the earliest of our humorists; yet he was the “Mark Twain” of the early nineteenth century.

Born in Nova Scotia in 1796, trained for the bar, and raised to the bench at the age of 32, he began sending a series of literary sketches to a Nova Scotian paper under the pen name, “Sam Slick.”

Sam, according to these sketches, was a Yankee clockmaker and peddler, with an aptitude for quaint drollery, subtle flattery (which he called “soft sawder”), and a keen insight into human nature.

It is in one of these yarns that Sam Slick, finding the need to describe someone as even poorer than Job, who, you may recall, had been stripped of all his possessions by Satan, hit upon the expression, “as poor as Job’s turkey.”

He explained this by saying that Job’s turkey was so poor that he had but one feather to his tail and had to lean against the fence to gobble.

Related Facts

  • Where does the expression "till the cows come home" come from and What does it mean?
  • Where does the expression "to come out flat footed" come from and What does it mean?
  • Where does the expression "to come out at the little end of the horn" come from and What does it mean?
  • Where does the expression "come off your perch" come from and What does it mean?
  • What does the expression "to get one's come uppance" mean and Where does it come from?
  • Where does the expression "to be ahead of the game" come from and What does to come out ahead mean?

Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « What does the phrase “half seas over” mean and Where does it come from?
Next Post: What does the phrase “Simon pure” mean and Where does it come from? »

Footer

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

Accomplishments Animals Culture Firsts Food Geography Health History Inventions Language Mythology Odds People Religion Science Space Universe World Your Body

About

Zippy Facts empowers the world by serving educational content that is accessible to everyone.

A tribute to growing up, zippyfacts.com showcases interesting and unusual facts about the world.

Our mission is to use technology to facilitate knowledge transfer and sharing.

Copyright © 2021 Zippy Facts

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy