Also Jonas.
1. The name of a Hebrew prophet, the subject of the Book of Jonah; used allusively, in senses thence derived.
1612. T. Lavender, Trav., Pref. to Rdr. C j. [He] thought it best to make a Ionas of him, and so cast both him and his books into the Sea.
1663. J. Spencer, Prodigies (1665), 369. They were always presumed the Jonas’s which raised all the storms in the State.
1679. Establ. Test, 9. One of the Jonahs that was … heaved over the Decks to allay the Tempest.
a. 1885. H. Conway, Living or Dead, viii. You must be very lucky in love … for you are a regular Jonah at cards.
1887. Spectator, 5 Nov., 1479/2. To make a Jonah of the one of its members who is probably least in fault.
2. Jonah-crab, a large crab (Cancer borealis) of the eastern coast of North America.
1893. in Funk.
Hence Jonah v. trans., to bring ill luck to.
1887. Black, Sabina Zembra, 282. I seem to Jonah everything I touch.
1897. R. Kipling, Captains Courageous, 97. A Jonah’s anything that spoils the luck…. I’ve known a splittin’-knife Jonah two trips till we was on to her.
