sackcloth and ashes

Related to sackcloth and ashes: wear sackcloth and ashes

sackcloth and ashes

Penitence or remorse for one's misdeeds or poor behavior. The phrase originates from an ancient tradition of wearing sackcloth as a show of repentance, and is typically accompanied by verbs like "wear." Darren has been wearing sackcloth and ashes ever since his girlfriend broke up with him for cheating on her. There's no way to turn back time on the way I treated my brother growing up. All I can do now is stay in sackcloth and ashes.
See also: and, ash, sackcloth
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

sackcloth and ashes

Mourning or penitence, as in What I did to Julie's child was terrible, and I've been in sackcloth and ashes ever since . This term refers to the ancient Hebrew custom of indicating humility before God by wearing a coarse cloth, normally used to make sacks, and dusting oneself with ashes. In English it appeared in William Tyndale's 1526 biblical translations (Matthew 11:21), "They [the cities Tyre and Sidon] had repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes."
See also: and, ash, sackcloth
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • wear sackcloth and ashes
  • put on sackcloth and ashes
  • put on, wear, etc. sackcloth and ashes
  • sackcloth
  • in sackcloth and ashes
  • still small voice
  • still small voice, a
  • have a hold on (someone)
  • have a hold over
  • have a hold over (someone)
References in periodicals archive
If God is right, and invariably he is, this means the sackcloth and ashes approach to environmentalism like the G-Wizz is more gee, was.
We have gone, under Labour, from having the best private pension schemes in Europe to sackcloth and ashes for the ordinary man.
I would hope those bishops would go to Rome wearing sackcloth and ashes. Every bishop who covered up abuse should resign.
The end result is that Mrs Young and Peter Elson are both right in their different ways, and that Peter has been spared the Daily Post punishment of hiking from Waterloo to Southport wearing nothing but sackcloth and ashes.
I won't tell you which bank or which charity it was for because the level of paranoia surrounding it was phenomenal lest someone who works for a financial institution was seen out of sackcloth and ashes and eating anything more than gruel.
It's the nature of government these days that not even chancellors can get away with telling the truth (not that Gordon Brown has ever tried to so far as I can work out) and so Mr Darling had to don sackcloth and ashes and recant.
But we are not going to get out the sackcloth and ashes just yet"
The doom-mongers have queued up in sackcloth and ashes in the wake of World Cup failure pointing to the retirement of top stars Roy Keane, Kenny Cunningham and Steve Carr.
All we need now is Tracey Emin in sackcloth and ashes and I'll be well chuffed
But they viewed a photograph a step too far, that in the context of comments from the Rev Ian Paisley, the DUP leader, that the IRA must don sackcloth and ashes, it was an attempt to humiliate them.
SACKCLOTH and ashes a fortnight ago when the sell of Coolagorna Figo at Brough Park went wrong and 100 lines of 'must do better' duly done.
The low standards of so many BBC television programmes nowadays, especially on BBC1, could mean that the enforcement authorities should dress in sackcloth and ashes in penance for the organisation for which they are collecting money.
I thought he might at least have tried an outfit made out of sackcloth and ashes for his first appearance in the limelight - or maybe Dolce and Gabbana haven't got round to that yet.
He said: "West Ham have gone home ecstatic and left us sad, morose and sick and it's sackcloth and ashes for a few days.
Aren't sackcloth and ashes passed to those accustomed to lifting their spirits with a quick jog and a natural endorphin high?"