Simon

Any boss or enforcer of work who is mercilessly strict and demanding. A reference to the a cruel and vicious slave owner in the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. He seemed like a nice guy when I first met him, but the new foreman turned out to be a real Simon Legree.

Absolutely genuine or authentic; pure or untainted. A reference to the character Simon Pure in Susannah Centlivre's 1717 play A Bold Stroke for a Wife. The new leader is promising to bring simon-pure democratic principles back into the political discourse.

old-fashioned The genuine or authentic person or thing; the most pure or untainted example of a type of person or thing. A reference to a character in Susannah Centlivre's 1717 play A Bold Stroke for a Wife. You have to be careful in these market bazaars that what you're buying is the real Simon Pure and not some cheap imitation. Though many had their doubts about her dedication to the cause, the party's new leader has proven herself to be the real Simon Pure.

Absolutely genuine, quite authentic, as in That laboratory test was simon pure; none of the specimens was adulterated. This expression comes from the name of a character in a play, Susannah Centilivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717), who is the victim of an impersonation but turns up in the end and proves that he is "the real Simon Pure."

The real thing, the genuine article. This expression comes from the name of a character in an early eighteenth-century play, Susannah Centilivre’s A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1710). In it, Simon Pure, a Quaker, is the victim of an impersonation by Colonel Feignwell. However, the Quaker turns up in time and proves that he is “the real Simon Pure” (5:1).

A foolish, gullible person; a simpleton. This expression comes from the well-known nursery rhyme “Simple Simon met a pieman going to the fair,” in turn a rhymed version of a tale from an eighteenth-century chapbook. By 1785 Grose’s dictionary defined the term as “a natural, a silly fellow.” James Joyce used it in Ulysses (1922): “I looked so simple in the cradle they christened me simple Simon.” However, it is probably obsolescent.