bottomless pit, the

Hell; also, something or someone that uses up all one’s energy or resources. The expression appears several times in the Bible, most notably in the Book of Revelation (“and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit,” 9:1; “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit,” 20:1). In the eighteenth cen- tury the term was humorously used for the English statesman William Pitt the younger (1759–1806), who was very thin, and it still is jocularly used for a seemingly insatiable individual of huge appetite.