pearly gates

alternative Pearly Gates

1. pluralplural onlybiblicalThe entrance way to Heaven.

   When shall these eyes thy heaven-built walls / And pearly gates behold?

   1795, Joseph Bromehead, Jerusalem, My Happy Home

   5 more examples

   This immense wealth; this gilded splendor; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil; this life of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all? Are the pearly gates of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors?

   1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter 7, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC

   The narrowness of the imagination of the old masters is generally depicted in their canvases. Heaven to them was a serious business of pearly gates, harps, halos, and aërial flights on ambient pale clouds.

   1908, Harold McGraff, chapter 27, in The Lure of the Mask

   I'd toss for pennies on the front steps of the New Jerusalem or set up a faro layout just outside the Pearly Gates.

   1910, Jack London, chapter 20, in Burning Daylight

   By the time they got a doctor down / I was already dead / And I'll never understand why the man / Standing in the Pearly Gates said…

   1971, John Prine, “Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore”, in John Prine

   When I'm at the pearly gates / This'll be on my videotape, my videotape

   2007, “Videotape”, in In Rainbows, performed by Radiohead

2. broadlypluralplural onlyHeaven itself.

1. pluralplural onlyAlternative letter-case form of pearly gates.