# Dressed to kill... where did the phrase come from?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dressed-to-kill-where-did-the-phrase-come-from/347220>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 6, 2006, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dressed-to-kill-where-did-the-phrase-come-from/347220 "2006-03-06T04:12:20Z")\
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**Author:** ![Slawkenbergius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Slawkenbergius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slawkenbergius)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dressed-to-kill-where-did-the-phrase-come-from/347220/5 "2011-11-20T02:51:51Z")

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I have always heard the phrase in the form, ‘dressed fit to kill’; it may be a coincidence, but I find a nearly identical phrase (in Greek) in Herodotus’ Histories, Book I ch. 109: There the child Cyrus is delivered by his grandfather, the Median King Astyages, to his steward Harpagus to be killed by exposure or otherwise, ‘kekosmhmenon thn epi thanatwi’, ‘dressed up [in clothes & ornaments] for death’. I think the phrase may have originally meant something like, ‘dressed up as you would be for your own funeral’, especially as in this case, a royal one.

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