Allusions Flashcards
Achilles’ Heel
The one weakness one may have or most vulnerable
Absolom
The son who brought heartache to his father.
Attila
Barbarian and rough leader; king of the Huns from 433-453. Most successful of the barbarian invaders
Aeolian
Pertaining to the wind
Bowdlerize
To censor, shorten, or modify. Bowlder changed and censored Shakespeare.
Cassandra:
A person who predicts misfortune, but is not believed.
Cinderella
One who gains affluence after neglect
Daniel
One known for wisdom and accurate judgment. He read handwriting.
Don Juan
Libertine, profligate, man obsessed with seducing women.
Filthy Lucre:
Any money or profits. Jesus castes moneylenders out the temple.
Frankenstein
Anything that threatens or destroys it’s creator
Hackney
To make something banal or trite by frequent use. A horse for ordinary riding or driving.
Junoesque
Marked stately by beauty.
King Ahab and Jezabel
An evil king of Israel and bus treacherous wife. Synonymous with evil.
Simon Legree
Harsh or cruel person in authority
Adonis
Handsome young man. Adonis ❤️ Aphrodite
Brobdingnagian
Gigantic, enormous, named after Brobdingnag in Gullivers Travels.
Casanova
Man amorously and gallantly attentive to women. Promiscuous.
Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt. Italian.
David and Bathsheba
Represents a big sin.
Gorgon
A very ugly or terrible person. A repulsive woman.
Horatio Alger
One who believes that a person can make their own merits
Iridescent
Producing colors of the rainbow. From Iris, goddess of the rainbow
Judas
A traitor or a treacherous kiss. Name means murderer or assassin.
Laconic
Using or marked by the use of few words. Brief, deriving from Lakonikos. Spartan.
Martial
Suited for war or a warrior. From Mars.
Milquetoast
Surprisingly bland. A timid, weak, and unassertive person.
Panglossian
Misleadingly optimistic.
Prodigal Son.
Wasteful son who disappoints his father.
Scrooge
Bitter old and greedy person.
Shanghai
To cheat, steal, or to get by illegal terms
Argus eyed
Omnipresent and everywhere
Atlantean
Hidden like Atlantis
Babbitt
Everyday business man
Jacob
Stole the birthright from his brother
Job
Loyal and steadfast
Jonah
Bein loyal and obedient
Lethargy
Slow and sluggish
Lothario
A licentious and mischievous man
Machiavellian
Cunning, scheming, and sneaky
Using a word in the place it shouldn’t be in
Accusatory ad suspicious
Original Sin
Adam and Eve in the Garden?
Sisyphean
Outrageously difficult task
Tartuffe
Hypocritical
Wagnerian
Speakers so lows
Bacchanal
Pertaining to wine
Chimera
A large beast
Don Quixote
Lofty and impractical
Eye of the Needle
Difficult task
Falstaffian
Fat and jolly
Halcyon
Denoting a time of joy
Harpy
Winged humanoid beast
Herculean
Relating to Hercules and great feats of strong
Ishmael
Son of Abraham
Manna
Magic life force
Nostradamus
Grand prediction master
Swiftian
Satirical
Thespian
Pertaining to theatre
Uncle Tom
Black man that is servile
Waterloo
A grand loss or defeat
Mercury / Hermes
To represent swiftness or quick transition ability.
Mentor
a trusted counselor or guide; from Mentor, a friend of Odysseus’ son, who was entrusted with his education
Protean
GRENINJA
Taking many forms, versatile, named after Proteus, a god of the sea, charged with tending the flocks of the sea creatures belonging to Poseidon. He had the ability to change himself into whatever form he desired, using this power particularly when he wanted to elude those asking him questions
Pooh-Bah
To be haughty and superficial
Ruth and Naomi
paragons of love between in-laws;
faithful friends. From the OT story of Ruth, who, when
her husband died in battle, left her own land to travel
with his mother back to her people.
Samson and Delilah
Treacherous love story.
Samson, an Israelite hero and legendary warrior with
extraordinary physical strength, fell in love with
Delilah, a Philistine. When Delilah learned that
Samson’s hair was the source of his strength, she
betrayed him by excepting a Philistine bribe to cut off
his hair while he slept.
Derrick
Machine for lifting or moving heavy objects
Mesmerize
to induce the state of being hypnotized;
F.A. Mesmer, an Austrian physician who used
hypnotism and developed a theory called “animal
magnetism”
Muse
Creature of inspiration
Phoenix
Symbol of immortality or rebirth
Rodomontade
bluster and boasting, to boast (rodomontading or rodomontaded); from Rodomont, a brave, but braggart knight in Bojardo's Orlando Inamorato
Yahoo
a boorish, crass, or stupid person; from a
member of a race of brutes in Swift’s
Gulliver’s Travels
Berserk
destructively or frenetically violent, mental or
emotional upset; a warrior clothed in bear skin who
worked himself into a frenzy before battle
Sardonic
bitterly ironical, sarcastic, sneering; from a
Sardinian plant said to bring on fits of laughter
Writing on the Wall
what the future holds; from
the OT story of Daniel, who was able to accurately
predict some mysterious writing that appeared on a wall
(translated, it predicted the
imminent death of the king)
Niobe
mournful woman; from Niobe, whose children
were slain by Apollo and Artemis because of her
bragging; the gods pitied her and turned her into a rock
that was always wet from weeping
Pyrrhic Victory
a too costly victory; from
Pyrrhus, a Greek king who defeated the Romans in 279
BC, but suffered extremely heavy losses in the figh
Pearl of Great Price
something so precious that one
would devote everything to or give up everything for it.
.In one of Jesus’ parables, the kingdom of heaven is
compared to a pearl of great price, or value, found by a
merchant
Stonewall
hinder or obstruct by evasive, delaying tactics; in cricket: trying to go completely defensive, blocking every ball without trying to score; relating to Stonewall Jackson (Thomas J. Jackson) Confederate
Parnassus
Mountain was sacred to arts and literature;
any center of poetic or artistic activity; .poetry or poets
collectively, a common title for selection of poetry;
named after the hero of Mt. Parnassus, the son of
Poseidon and a Nymph. He founded the oracle of
Python, which was later occupied by Apollo
Stentorian
having a loud voice; after Stentor, a character in the Iliad who could shout as loudly as 50 men. He engaged in a sh outing match against Hermes and was put to death after losing.
Solomon
Being very wise
Dungaree
a style of casual work pants; from a coarse
cotton fabric of East Indian origin; from the Hindu
Pegasus
Poetic inspiration; named after a winged horse
which sprang from the blood of Medusa at her death; a
stamp of his hoof caused Hippocrene, the fountain of the
Muses, to issue poetic inspiration from Mount Helicon.
Friday
A faithful and willing attendant, ready to turn
his hand to anything; from the young savage found by
Robinson Crusoe on a Friday, and kept as his servant
and companion on the desert island
Job’s “comforters”
“friends” who try to help by
bringing blame; ironically, Job’s “comforters” didn’t
comfort at all but were the source of more affliction.
Bloomer
undergarments for dance or active wear;
underwear formally worn by females that was composed
of loose trousers gathered at the ankles; invented by
Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-94), and American social
reformer
Plutocracy
a government by the wealthy; named after
Pluton, the “Rich Man,” a ritual tile of Hades. He was
originally the god of the fields because the ground was
the source of all wealth, ores and jewels.
Jekyll and Hyde
A capricious person with two sides
to his/her personality; from a character in the famous
novel
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
who had more than one
personality, a split personality (one good and one evil
Little Lord Fauntleroy
refers either to a certain type
of children’s clothing or to a beautiful, but pampered and
effeminate small boy; from a work by Frances H.
Burnett, the main character,
seven-year-old Cedric Errol,
was a striking figure, dressed in black velvet with a lace
collar and yellow curls
