Entry · catalog no. 5015
the devil is a lie
/ /ðə ˈdɛvəl ɪz ə ˈlaɪ/ /thuh DEV-ul iz uh LY
phrase · Black church congregations nationwide, strongest in Southern and Pentecostal traditions · 20th c.
✓ Verified
1.
A spoken rejection of despair or deception — declaring that a bad report, temptation, or discouraging thought comes from the enemy and is therefore false.
“They told her the position was already filled before she even interviewed — the devil is a lie, she applied anyway.”
2.
In everyday secular use, an emphatic refusal of something outrageous or unacceptable.
“Eight dollars for a little cup of fruit? The devil is a lie.”
Origin & Attribution
The phrase comes out of the Black church, rooted in John 8:44, where the devil is named 'a liar and the father of it.' In the Black sermonic and testimony tradition — call-and-response preaching, prayer service, the testimony hour — 'the devil is a liar' works as a declaration: whatever despair, diagnosis, or false report is on the table is assigned to the enemy and refused. Like much church speech it moved fluidly into everyday Black talk as an all-purpose rebuke of nonsense. The variant 'the devil is a lie' — the falsehood itself personified — got its biggest secular receipt when Rick Ross released 'The Devil Is a Lie' featuring Jay-Z on December 19, 2013, lead single from the 2014 album 'Mastermind.' The sermon owned the phrase for generations before the single borrowed its thunder; the church usage is the origin, not a reference to the song.
pre-1900s
Rooted in John 8:44 and Black sermonic tradition
1900s
Standard fixture of testimony and prayer-service speech
2013
Rick Ross ft. Jay-Z, 'The Devil Is a Lie' single
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Black church congregations nationwide, strongest in Southern and Pentecostal traditions · 20th c.
Spoken by
Preachers and congregations, church-raised speakers of all ages, and, since 2013, hip-hop audiences
$THEDEVThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring13 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
76/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2013
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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See also