What is the origin of the phrase "without a shadow of a doubt"?
Question #105805. Asked by CapainNemo.
raidersruleall
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raidersruleall 16 year member
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The simpler phrase "beyond a doubt" was first used around 1300. The phrase was used in the words "beyond the shadow of a doubt" around 1820 in various news prints, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter", in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" in 1889, and in Robert Frost's 1915 poem "Trials by Existence."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_shadow_of_a_doubt#History