Meaning
To prepare a lavish celebration, especially serving the best food and drink, in order to welcome someone home after a long absence. Very often used ironically of a warmer reception than the returning person deserves. Slightly formal and increasingly humorous; frequently ironic. Regional use: General English.
Origin
A direct allusion to the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke's Gospel. In Luke 15:23 the forgiving father orders his servants to bring the fatted calf and kill it so the household can feast and be merry at his son's return, and in verses 29-30 the resentful elder brother complains that his father never gave him so much as a young goat, yet killed the fatted calf for the wastrel. The familiar English wording comes from the early Bible translations, above all the King James Version of 1611, and the phrase passed into ordinary speech as shorthand for any lavish welcome-home. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable glosses it as producing one's best food to celebrate, especially at a prodigal's return, making the Luke 15:23 allusion explicit. Exactly when it became proverbial in English is not documented in the sources consulted.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- kill the fatted calf for someone
- kill the fattened calf
- slaughter the fatted calf
- the fatted calf
Usage Examples
- When their son finally came home after five years abroad, they killed the fatted calf for a solid week.
- The committee killed the fatted calf for the visiting inspectors, laying on refreshments nobody had budgeted for.
- Nobody is going to kill the fatted calf for a manager who walked out two weeks before launch.