Cave of Adullam

English

Etymology

From Biblical Hebrew מְעָרַת־עֲדֻלָּם (məʿāraṯ-ʿĂḏullām, “cave of Adullam”), referring to a redoubt near the town of Adullam where David fled from his enemy King Saul of Israel.

Noun

Cave of Adullam (plural Caves of Adullam)

1. (figuratively) A place or group in which people who have met failure or defeat in some way are said to congregate.
   • 1890, George William Knox, “The Lull in Japan”, in The Church at Home and Abroad, volume 8, page 219:

     […] but what shall we say of the sects which, coming late with forces weak in number and intellect, feed upon the refuse of the Church? They form caves of Adullam and call them churches.

   • 1896, Leslie Stephen, “The Evolution of Editors”, in The National Review, volume 26, number 156, page 773:

     […] Grub Street was a Cave of Adullam for broken men, ruined in trade or political troubles, who could just keep body and soul together by these productions.

   • 1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 226:

     The order was largely copied by private firms, with the result, as Szálasi complained, of “completely excluding the middle classes from the Hungarist Movement”—which in fact was by it both reduced in volume and changed in character, becoming more than ever a Cave of Adullam for more or less desperate elements.

   • 2005, Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine in America, volume 2, →ISBN, page 205:

     The marathon open hearing held in Fresno in May 1961 to debate the measure turned out to be a Cave of Adullam where everyone with a complaint or a grievance, exacerbated through the long years of market instability, craved to be heard.

Derived terms

• Adullamite