Meaning
An existence that seems magically protected, in which a person repeatedly escapes danger, failure, or misfortune that would strike anyone else. Usually admiring or faintly envious, it can also carry a critical edge when applied to someone reckless or untested, who has simply never had to pay for their mistakes. Warmly admiring or envious in most uses, with a possible undertone of criticism when the subject has never faced real tests. Regional use: General English (Shakespearean origin).
Origin
Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 8 (Folger numbering), in the final duel at Dunsinane: 'I bear a charmed life, which must not yield / To one of woman born'. Macbeth is leaning on the witches' prophecy that no man born of woman can harm him - a boast punctured moments later when Macduff, 'from his mother's womb untimely ripped', proves the prophecy's loophole and kills him. The Phrase Finder lists the phrase among those coined in Macbeth (1605). 'Charm' was literal magic in the play; once the supernatural frame faded, the expression softened into the everyday figurative sense of a strangely fortunate, accident-free life, the form 'lead a charmed life' becoming standard.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- charmed existence
- lead a charmed existence
- lead a charmed life
- live a charmed life
Usage Examples
- He has led a charmed life: three bankruptcies, two shipwrecks, and never so much as a broken bone.
- You would think the goalkeeper leads a charmed life - two penalties struck the post and bounced clear.
- It was a charmed life on paper, but she privately doubted how long the luck could hold.