subs. (old: now colloquial).—Reproof instead of consolation. Hence JOB’S-COMFORTER = a sharp-tongued friend: also = a boil (in allusion to Job ii., 7). JOB’S-NEWS = bad news; JOB’S-POST = a messenger of bad news; AS POOR AS JOB’S TURKEY = (see quot. 1871). JOB’S-WIFE = a whoring scold. JOB’S-DOCK = a hospital; JOB’S-WARD = a ward for the treatment of venereal diseases.
1738. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, Dial. 3. Lady Smart. … I think your ladyship looks thinner than when I saw you last. Miss. Indeed, madam, I think not; but your ladyship is one of JOB’S COMFORTERS.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. JOB’S COMFORT, JOB’S COMFORTER and JOB’S DOCK.
1837. CARLYLE, The French Revolution, iii. 3. ch. 4. From home there can nothing come except JOB’S-NEWS. Ibid. This JOB’S POST from Dumouriez … reached the National Convention.
1838. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 2. S. ch. ii. ‘Well, I’m e’en a’most starved, and Captain Jack does look AS POOR AS JOB’S TURKEY; that’s a fact.’
1854. F. E. SMEDLEY, Harry Coverdale’s Courtship, xxiv. The amiable and timid London butler, who had played the character of JOB’S COMFORTER to Alice’s ‘Didone abandonata’ on the memorable evening of the first of September.
1857. Notes and Queries, 1, S. vii. 180. s.v.
1871. Once a Week, May (quoted by DE VERE). Intensified, in American fashion, by some energetic addition; for instance, ‘AS POOR AS JOB’S TURKEY, that had but one feather in its tail,’ or, ‘AS POOR AS JOB’S TURKEY, that had to lean against a fence to gobble.’
