John the Baptist

From Middle English Johan þe Babtis, from Latin Iōannēs Baptista.

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John the Baptist

1. A New Testament prophet who baptized Jesus and was subsequently executed by Herod Antipas.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 3:1–2:

     In those daies came Iohn the Baptist, preaching in the wildernesse of Iudea, And saying, Repent yee: for the kingdome of heauen is at hand.

• St. John the Baptist Parish

John the Baptist

1. (figuratively) A harbinger or prophetic figure, often one initially ignored or rejected by others.
   • 1938 January 17, “Books: Keyserling”, in Time‎, volume 31, page 62:

     […] and praise such as Glenn Frank’s: “Keyserling may turn out to be a John the Baptist of a new Western civilization.”

   • 1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 184:

     In 1935 Szálasi had been a lonely John the Baptist in Hungarian politics, the self-appointed leader of a tiny party, less than 500 strong, advocating an unpopular cause.

   • 2003 September 21, Frank Kermode, “‘Pieces of My Mind’”, in The New York Times‎:

     Ellis makes Diaghilev a John the Baptist of a ‘classico-mathematical Renaissance’, and the notion that this was a renaissance of some kind or other was evidently in the air.

• voice in the wilderness

• “John the Baptist”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “John the Baptist”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “John the Baptist”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “John the Baptist”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.