Alpha and Omega (Idiom)

ALPHA AND OMEGA (Idiom)

In the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, the cosmic Jesus supposedly said, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty," and later, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." Despite this lofty origin, today people use the phrase to mean "everything," no matter how mundane. If you want to claim that your company offers everything a customer might want, you could say, "We serve all your needs from A to Z." Well, the first and last letters of the classical Greek alphabet were alpha (the second is Beta, and together they make our word "alphabet") and omega (meaning "Big O"). So a Greek merchant might say, "We serve all your needs from alpha to omega." The idiom can also mean the basic parts of something: "Teacher training is the alpha and omega of education reform."

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)