Ten Commandments

English

Alternative forms
  • ten commandments

Etymology

A translation of Biblical Hebrew עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים‎ ('aséret had'varím, “the ten utterances”), from Exodus 34:28 and elsewhere in the Bible.

Proper noun

Ten Commandments

  1. (religion) A particular list of religious and moral imperatives which, according to the Old Testament of the Bible or the Hebrew Bible, were given from God to Moses on Mount Sinai inscribed on two stone tablets.
  2. (slang) The ten fingernails, used by women when fighting.
    • 1876, Evening Hours (page 629)
      She'd drink the gin fust and give him her ten commandments artervards, when she'd aggerawated him to try it on.
    • 1881, William Henry Thomes, Running the Blockade: Or, U. S. Secret Service Adventures (page 148)
      […] once or twice, when he cut up bad, she appeared to him, and scratched his face with her ten commandments […]

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Translations

See also
  • Nine Commandments (“Ennealogue”)
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