English
Etymology
Most sources hold this to be a coinage of w:Washington Irving|Washington Irving, alluding to "Almighty God", although a Philadelphia newspaper also used the phrase at approximately the same time and w:Ben Jonson|Ben Jonson had used "almighty gold" in 1616 in Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.
Idiom
almighty dollar
#idiom (United States English, pejorative) The dollar, satirically characterized as a being a god
#:quotations
#:*1836: "The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty."<br>— w:Washington Irving|Washington Irving The Creole Village, in Knickerbocker Magazine (November 1836), later re-published in Wolfert's Roost's and Other Papers (1855)
References
THE DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE BY E. COBHAM BREWER FROM THE NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION OF 1894, accessed on 2005-04-20
almighty dollar, The Columbia World of Quotations, accessed on 2005-04-20
Origins of Sayings - "The Almighty Dollar", Trivia Library, accessed on 2005-04-20
Timeline of Arkansas History, 1800s, Traveller's Guide to Arkansas, accessed on 2005-04-20
"Allen Read, the Expert of 'O.K.,' Dies at 96" by Douglas Martin (New York Times, 2002-10-19), accessed on 2005-04-20
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