Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
an image from Matt. viii:28. From Gadara, town of ancient times near Galilee.
Usage examples of "gadarene swine".
I propose to pretty myself up and join the rest of you Gadarene swine in debauching myself magnificently to death.
It was true he had put the hex on the Gadarene swine, but that was in a good cause.
Professor Huxley has dealt exhaustively with the Gadarene Swine, showing that if Jesus himself loved his neighbours, he was at least a little careless about their property, which was in this instance their sole means of livelihood.
When Parson Martin tried to dismiss ghouls and the like as weak superstition he set him down with the Witch of Endor and the Gadarene swine and evil spirits by the dozen out of Holy Writ - cited all sorts of classical ghosts, appealed to the unvarying tradition of all nations and ages, and gave us a circumstantial account of a Pyrenean werewolf of his acquaintance that absolutely terrified the younger mids.
I pushed change into the outstretched hand of the little pay phone demon, which must be descended from Mammon by way of the Gadarene swine.
There is the instance of the Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea.
For instance, a claw of the bear which devoured Saint Candolphus, or a bangle from the arm of the prostitute Jesus defended before the temple, or a desiccated ear from one of the Gadarene swine.