quote chapter and verse

Also found in: Idioms.

quote chapter and verse

[by analogy with the mainstream phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate bible. "I don't care if "rn" gets it wrong; "Followup-To: poster" is explicitly permitted by RFC 1036. I'll quote chapter and verse if you don't believe me." See also legalese, language lawyer, RTFS (sense 2).

References in classic literature ?

And yet, as there is no conduct so fair and disinterested but that it may be misunderstood by ignorance, and misrepresented by malice, I have been sometimes tempted to preserve my own reputation at the expense of my reader, and to transcribe the original, or at least to quote chapter and verse, whenever I have made use either of the thought or expression of another.

View in context

Lim challenged Hanif to 'quote chapter and verse, date and place' where he had allegedly called for the peninsula to be split into two.

Prove that I wanted to split peninsula, Kit Siang tells ex-IGP Hanif

Forgive us if we don't quote chapter and verse. We have used up our credulity about enforcement, idealism, soul-searching, and most of the other bromides that go with reform.