If someone is on 'the road to perdition', what does that mean? What's the origin of the expression?

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If someone is on 'the road to perdition', what does that mean? What's the origin of the expression?

Question #147084. Asked by Walneto.
Last updated Oct 09 2019.
Originally posted Oct 05 2019 12:05 AM.

Related Trivia Topics: Vocabulary

AcrylicInk

Answer has 8 votes

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AcrylicInk

8 year member
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Answer has 8 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.

It comes from an Old French word meaning 'loss'.

Special theological sense of "condition of damnation, spiritual ruin, state of souls in Hell" (late 14c.) has gradually extinguished the general use of the word.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/perdition

Response last updated by looney_tunes on Oct 08 2019.
Oct 05 2019, 3:54 AM

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Answer 1

I believe the more common understanding of "The Road to Perdition" would be, "The Road or A Path to Destruction." If you have seen the Tom Hanks movie of the same name, in order to protect his son, he takes a road / path that eventually leads to his own death, "The Road to Perdition".

perdition (n.)
mid-14c., "fact of being lost or destroyed," from Old French perdicion "loss, calamity, perdition" of souls (11c.) and directly from Late Latin perditionem (nominative perditio) "ruin, destruction," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin perdere "do away with, destroy; lose, throw away, squander," from per- "through" (here perhaps with intensive or completive force, "to destruction") + dare "to give" (from PIE root *do- "to give"). Special theological sense of "condition of damnation, spiritual ruin, state of souls in Hell" (late 14c.) has gradually extinguished the general use of the word.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/perdition

If someone is on 'the road to perdition', what does that mean? What's the origin of the expression?

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