Brewer's: Job

(o long). The personification of poverty and patience. “Patients as Job,” in allusion to the patriarch whose history is given in the Bible.

Poor as Job.

Referring to the patriarch when he was by Satan deprived of all his worldly possessions.

“I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.” -

Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV., i. 2.

Job's Comforter

One who pretends to sympathise in your grief, but says that you brought it on yourself; thus in reality adding weight to your sorrow. (See above.)

Job's wife. Some call her Rahmat, daughter of Ephraim, son of Joseph; and others call her Makhir, daughter of Manasses. (Sale: Korân xxi., note.)

She is also called by some Sitis; and a tradition exists that Job, at the command of God, struck the earth with his foot from the dunghill where he lay, and instantly there welled up a spring of water with which his wife washed his sores, and they were miraculously healed. (Korân, xxxvi. 41.)

Job's Pound

Bridewell; prison.

Job

(o short) A job is a piece of chance work; a public work or office not for the public benefit, but for the profit of the person employed; a sudden blow or “dig” into one.

A bad job.

An unsuccessful work; one that brings loss instead of profit; a bad speculation. To do the job for one. To kill him.

Job

(o short). A ministerial job. Sheridan says: “Whenever any emolument, profit, salary, or honour is conferred on any person not deserving it—that is a job; if from private friendship, personal attachment, or any view except the interest of the public, anyone is appointed to any public office ... that is a job.”

No cheek is known to blush, or heart to throb, Save when they lose a question or a job.

Pope: Essay on Criticism, i. 104.

Job Lot

(A). A lot of miscellaneous goods to be sold a bargain.

Jobs

A printer's phrase to designate all kinds of work not included in the term “book-work.” The French call such work ouvrage de ville.

Allied to the Latin, op[us]; Spanish, ob[ra]; French, ouv[rage]; the r occurs in the genitive case, oper[is].

Job

(To). To strike. To give one a “job in the eye” is to give one a blow in the eye; and to “job one in the ribs” is to strike one in the ribs, to stab one in the ribs. Job and probe seem to be very nearly allied. Hallivell gives the word “stop,” to poke or thrust, which is allied to stab.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894

Jobation

Joannes Hagustaldensis