# a voice crying in the wilderness

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/a-voice-crying-in-the-wilderness
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A lone warning or opinion that goes unheeded by everyone around it.

## Examples

- For years she was a voice crying in the wilderness about the safety flaw.
- The lone economist warning of the crash was a voice crying in the wilderness until, one morning, the markets proved him right.
- For a decade the old engineer had been a voice crying in the wilderness, filing report after ignored report about the ageing bridge, and when it finally closed for emergency repairs, everyone suddenly remembered that someone had been trying to tell them all along.

## Origin

The phrase originates in Isaiah 40:3 — the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord — and the Gospels, at Matthew 3:3, apply it to John the Baptist, who preached repentance in the desert ahead of Jesus. The image is of a solitary figure proclaiming an urgent message in an empty place, far from the crowds who most need to hear it, and the popular reading emphasises that isolation: a truth-teller with no audience. In English a voice crying in the wilderness is someone whose warning or dissent is ignored — a lone, often prophetic figure saying something important that nobody, at least for now, is willing to listen to.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.