Where does the saying the devil is beating his wife come from?
Sarah Richards
Published May 27, 2026
The first recorded use of this phrase was in 1703 in a French play: “to go and thrash him around the churchyard, as the devil does his wife in rainy weather when the sun shines.” Then, years later, the writer Jonathan Swift used it in 1738: “the devil was beating his wife behind the door with a shoulder of mutton.”