appointment in Samarra
- noun
- Literature
:
cita en Samarra
- He had an appointment in Samarra that he could not escape.
Examples
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Some believe that running from danger is pointless because it only hastens their appointment in Samarra.
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The story illustrates how we all have an appointment in Samarra.
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He regarded the challenge as inevitable, his personal appointment in Samarra.
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The novel's central theme revolves around each character's own appointment in Samarra.
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He viewed the situation as a preordained path toward his eventual appointment in Samarra.
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Many believe that trying to evade their fate only brings them closer to their appointment in Samarra.
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The protagonist's journey emphasizes the inevitability of each person's appointment in Samarra.
Synonyms
5
7.6
A very important event that decides the future for a person or country
1
5.3
A meeting that changes someone's life forever
Surface Forms
Morphology
appointment + in + Samarra
A B1 learner who knows 'appointment' and 'in Samarra' will read this literally as a meeting taking place in the city Samarra; the idiomatic sense of an unavoidable, fated encounter (often death) comes from a cultural/parabolic story and is not deducible from the parts. Because the meaning depends on literary/cultural knowledge rather than compositional semantics, it is not predictable for learners without prior exposure.
Etymology
Appointment in Samarra comes from an old story in which a man in Baghdad sees Death and runs to the city of Samarra to escape, but Death is waiting there and says he had an appointment with him in Samarra. That's why the phrase means 'an unavoidable meeting with fate' or 'to die'.