pilgrim's progress
English
Etymology
Referring to the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, 1678, by John Bunyan.
Noun
- A morally or spiritually testing journey, often filled with obstacles, learning experiences, and eventual transformation or enlightenment.
- Any slow, difficult, dour or funless journey.
- 1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 74:
- Lady Rosie - so mad-cap in the gaiety of summer's full-blowing that even the organizer of the prim-and-properness forgot about it. Thus what has been planned to be a sort of pilgrim's progress turned out to be a fairy frolic[.]
- Moral, spiritual, meaningful, or redemptive progress.