Todays Word

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

writing on the wall

PRONUNCIATION:

(RY-ting ahn thuh WAWL) 

MEANING:

noun: A clear sign of impending decline or disaster.

ETYMOLOGY:

From write, from Old English writan + wall, from Old English weall, from Latin vallum (rampart), from vallus (stake). Earliest documented use: 1663.

NOTES:

In the Biblical story told in Daniel 5, the haughty King Belshazzar throws a big party. While everyone is feasting, a disembodied hand appears and writes a warning on the wall. The term is also used in the form handwriting on the wall.
The moral of the story: At a party, read the room. Also, read the doom.

USAGE:

“My mother, her sister, and parents arrived in 1934 from Germany; my grandmother saw the writing on the wall early. Nobody else in her family was persuaded that Hitler’s rise was not a temporary aberration, and they stayed behind.”
Liora Moriel; The New Revisioning; The Jerusalem Report (Israel); Jun 26, 2023.