To ‘share and share alike’ is to give equal shares to all.
To ‘share and share alike’ is to give equal shares to all.
The expression was first known as ‘share and share like’, as in this example from Richard Edwards’s comedy Damon and Pithias, 1566:
“Let vs into the Courte to parte the spoyle, share and share like.”
Daniel Defoe, appears to be the first to have used the ‘share and share alike’ version. That was is Robinson Crusoe, or as he called it The life and strange adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719:
“He declar’d he had reserv’d nothing from the Men, and went Share and Share alike with them in every Bit they eat.”
Trend of share and share alike in printed material over time
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