Phrase and Fable 2023

Question 1

A1

Answer 1

excellent, first-rate; in Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, it is used of ships in first-class condition as to hull (A) and stores (1).

Question 2

Aaron

Answer 2

in the Bible, the brother of MOSES and traditional founder of the Jewish priesthood, the first anointed high priest. He was persuaded by the people to make an image of God in the form of a GOLDEN calf, thereby earning Moses’ displeasure.

Question 3

Abaddon

Answer 3

a name for the Devil (Revelation 9:11) or for hell. Recorded from late Middle English, Abaddon comes via Greek from Hebrew ‘destruction’. Its use for ‘hell’ derives from Milton’s Paradise Regained (1671).

Question 4

abandon hope all ye who enter here

Answer 4

traditional rendering of the final line of the inscription over the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno.

Question 5

Abba

Answer 5

in the New Testament, God as father; in the Syrian Orthodox and Coptic Churches, a title given to bishops and patriarchs. The word comes via Greek from Aramaic abb ‘father’.

Question 6

Basle

Answer 6

a commercial and industrial city on the Rhine in NW Switzerland; population 163,521 (2007).

French name Bâle, German name Basel.

Question 7

Abbasid

Answer 7

a member of a dynasty of caliphs who ruled in Baghdad from 750 to 1258, named after Abbas (566–652), the prophet MUHAMMAD’S uncle and founder of the dynasty.

Question 8

Abdera

Answer 8

a Greek city in Thrace whose inhabitants were proverbial for their stupidity.

Question 9

Abdication Crisis

Answer 9

the constitutional crisis, resulting from the king of England’s determination to marry a divorced woman, Wallis Simpson, which culminated in the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936.

Question 10

Abednego

Answer 10

in Daniel 1:7, the name, meaning ‘servant of Nego’ (a form of ‘Nebo’) given by King Nebuchadnezzaar to Azariah, one of those cast into the BURNING fiery furnace.

Question 11

Abelard and Héloïse

Answer 11

a type of doomed lovers. Peter Abelard (1079–1142), a French scholar, theologian, and philosopher, was noted for an independence of mind which led to his being twice condemned for heresy. His academic career was cut short in 1118 by his tragic love affair with his pupil Héloïse. Abelard was castrated at her uncle’s instigation; he entered a monastery, and Héloïse became a nun. Abelard and Héloïse are buried together in Paris.

Question 12

Gothenburg

Answer 12

a seaport in SW Sweden, on the Kattegat strait; population 500,197 (2008). It is the second largest city in Sweden. Swedish name Göteborg.

Question 13

Aberfan

Answer 13

a village in South Wales where, in 1966, a slag heap collapsed, overwhelming houses and a school and killing 28 adults and 116 children.

Question 14

abigail

Answer 14

archaic term for a lady’s maid. The term comes in the 17th century from the name of the ‘waiting gentlewoman’ in Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of The Scornful Lady; so named possibly in biblical allusion to the expression ‘thine handmaid’ frequently applied to herself by Abigail, future wife of King David (1 Samuel 25:24–31).

Question 15

abiogenesis

Answer 15

a technical term for SPONTANEOUS generation, which was introduced by the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Liverpool in September 1870.

Question 16

Lakshadweep

Answer 16

a group of islands off the Malabar Coast of SW India, constituting a Union Territory in India; population 67,400 (est. 2009); capital, Kavaratti. The group consists of the Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindivi Islands.

Question 17

Meleager

Answer 17

(fl. 1st century bc) , Greek poet, best known as the compiler of Stephanos, one of the first large anthologies of epigrams.

Question 18

Oath of Abjuration

Answer 18

an oath disclaiming allegiance to James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766, known as the OLD Pretender), son of James II, or his descendants as claimants to the British throne. The Abjuration Act of 1701 made it compulsory for candidates for military or religious office to take the oath. It was finally abolished in 1858 and replaced by a version of the Oath of Allegiance.

Question 19

Battle of Aboukir Bay

Answer 19

a naval battle in 1798 off Aboukir Bay at the mouth of the Nile, in which the British under Nelson defeated the French fleet. Also known as the Battle of the Nile.

Question 20

Abraham’s bosom

Answer 20

is where the righteous dead are said to lie at peace; the term comes from Luke 66:22.

Question 21

Justice the Guardian of Liberty.

Answer 21

Inscription on East Portico of U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 22

Equal Justice Under Law.

Answer 22

Inscription on West Portico of U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 23

Arbit macht frei

Answer 23

Work liberates.
Inscription on gates of Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps (1933-1945). First appeared as the title of a short novel by Lorenz Diefenbach in 1872.

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 24

Know thyself

Answer 24

Inscription on temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 25

Nothing in excess

Answer 25

Inscription on temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
[See Horace 19; Horace 26; Proverbs 195]

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 26

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

Answer 26

Sentence devised to test speed of first typewriter (1867). According to [Respectfully Quoted,] ed. Suzy Platt, “Author unknown. . . . Other sources credit [Charles E.] Weller as author of the famous sentence, but he does not claim the credit in his book. The sentence is still in use, though it is often written as ‘their’ party.”

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 27

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Answer 27

Sentence used to test letters of keyboard, quoted in [N.Y. Times,] 22 Feb. 1885

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 28

Speak Truth to Power

Answer 28

Title of pamphlet by American Friends Service Committee (1955). Bayard Rustin, one of the pamphlet’s authors, had written in a 15 Aug. 1942 letter: “The primary function of a religious society is to ‘speak the truth to power.’”

Anonymous

From “The Yale Book of Quotations”, ©2006 by Fred Shapiro
www.quotationdictionary.com

Question 29

Abraham man

Answer 29

a former or occasional inmate of the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, licensed to beg on his discharge, or a similarly licensed beggar discharged from a charitable institution (perhaps in allusion to the biblical story of the beggar Lazarus in Luke 16). The term was current in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Question 30

Absalom

Answer 30

the third and favourite son of DAVID, who rebelled against his father and was killed; he is taken as the type of a rebellious son who is loved and mourned despite his rebellion. According to the biblical account, Absalom was killed when he rode beneath an oak tree and the branches caught in his long hair, trapping him, so that he could be dispatched by David’s commander JOAB.

Question 31

Ballard, J.G.

Answer 31

(1930–2009) , British novelist and short-story writer; full name James Graham Ballard. He is known for dystopian science fiction such as his first novel, The Drowned World (1962), and Crash (1973).

Question 32

Absalom and Achitophel

Answer 32

an allegorical poem (1681) by John Dryden, dealing with the succession crisis centring on the EXCLUSION Bill of 1680; in the poem, Absalom stands for the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s illegitimate son, and his counsellor Achitophel is his supporter the Earl of Shaftesbury.

Question 33

absentee landlord

Answer 33

a landlord who does not live at and rarely visits the property they let. The term was traditionally associated with Anglo-Irish families of the Protestant Ascendancy, as in Maria Edgeworth’s novel The Absentee (1822), depicting the struggles of the son of the house to rectify the results of his father’s mismanagement.

Question 34

absinthe

Answer 34

a green aniseed-flavoured liqueur, originally flavoured with wormwood, although this is now banned owing to its toxicity; in the 19th and early 20th centuries drinking absinthe was regarded as a sign of decadence.

Question 35

Abu Simbel

Answer 35

the site of two huge rock-cut temples in southern Egypt, built during the reign of Ramses II in the 13th century BC and commemorating him and his first wife Nefertari. Following the building of the High Dam at Aswan, the monument was rebuilt higher up the hillside.

Question 36

Abyla

Answer 36

former name (now Jebel Musa) for one of the two rocks forming the PILLARS of Hercules.

Question 37

St Acacius

Answer 37

reputed martyr, of no known date, said to have been put to death with 10,000 companions by a pagan army; he is reputed to have prayed before his death that those venerating their memory would be granted health and strength, and from this he is traditionally counted as one of the FOURTEEN Holy Helpers. His feast day is 22 June.

Question 38

Académie française

Answer 38

a French literary academy with a constant membership of forty, responsible for the standard form of the French language and for compiling and revising a definitive dictionary of the French language. Its tendency is to defend traditional literary and linguistic rules and to discourage innovation. It was founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635.

Question 39

Academy

Answer 39

the philosophical school of Plato; Akadmeia was the name of the garden where Plato originally taught, named after the hero Akadmos.

Question 40

Acadia

Answer 40

a former French colony established in 1604 in the territory now forming Nova Scotia in Canada, ceded to Britain in 1763.

Question 41

acanthus

Answer 41

a conventionalized representation of the leaf of this plant is used especially as a decoration for Corinthian column capitals. The term in this sense dates from the mid 18th century; the name of the plant comes via Latin from Greek akanthos, from akantha ‘thorn’, from ak ‘sharp point’.

Question 42

accidie

Answer 42

spiritual or mental sloth; apathy. Recorded from Middle English (figuring in lists of the SEVEN deadly sins), the word comes via Latin from Greek akdia ‘listlessness’, from a- ‘without’ + kdos ‘care’.

Question 43

Aceldama

Answer 43

in the New Testament, a field near Jerusalem purchased with the blood money given to Judas for his betrayal of Jesus, the POTTER’S field.

Question 44

Achaean

Answer 44

of or relating to Achaea in ancient Greece; (especially in Homeric contexts) Greek. The Achaeans were among the earliest Greek-speaking inhabitants of Greece, being established there well before the 12th century BC. Some scholars identify them with the Mycenaeans of the 14th–13th centuries BC. The Greek protagonists in the Trojan War are regularly called Achaeans in the Iliad, though this may have referred only to the leaders.

Question 45

Acheron

Answer 45

in Greek mythology, one of the rivers of HADES.

Question 46

fidus Achates

Answer 46

Latin phrase (‘faithful Achates’) meaning a faithful friend and follower. Achates was a companion of AENEAS, whose loyalty to his friend was so exemplary as to become proverbial.

Question 47

Achaemenid

Answer 47

a member of the dynasty ruling in Persia from Cyrus I to Darius III (553–330 BC); the name comes from Greek Akhaimens ‘Achaemenes’, the reputed ancestor of the dynasty.

Question 48

Achilles

Answer 48

in Greek mythology, a hero of the TROJAN War, son of Peleus and THETIS. During his infancy his mother plunged him in the Styx, thus making his body invulnerable except for the heel by which she held him: this was where in the end he was to be mortally wounded. The term Achilles’ heel, for a person’s only vulnerable spot, comes from this story, as does the name Achilles tendon for the tendon attaching the calf to the heel muscle. When the expedition to Troy was mounted, Thetis tried to protect her son by putting him in the charge of the centaur CHIRON on the island of Scyros. Odysseus, visiting the island in search of him, found only what appeared to be a group of women, but when a battle-cry was heard one of the girls, the disguised Achilles, revealed himself by seizing sword and shield. During the Trojan War Achilles withdrew from fighting following a bitter quarrel with AGAMEMNON. After his friend Patroclus was killed by Hector, Achilles re-entered the battle and killed HECTOR but was later wounded in the heel by an arrow shot by Paris and died. His armour was seen as an emblem of valour; when it was awarded to ODYSSEUS, AJAX committed suicide.

Question 49

acid test

Answer 49

a conclusive test for the success or value of something; the reference is to the testing for gold by means of nitric acid.

Question 50

Acis

Answer 50

in Greek mythology, a young shepherd, lover of the sea nymph GALATEA, who was killed out of jealousy by his rival POLYPHEMUS; as he died, Galatea turned him into a river.

Question 51

aconite

Answer 51

a poetic term for deadly poison, as in ‘Wine is Aconite to Men’ (Abraham Cowley, Anacreontics, 1656). The term comes from the use of aconite to mean an alkaloidal extract from monkshood or other poisonous plant of the genus Aconitum.

Question 52

acre

Answer 52

a unit of land area equal to 4,840 square yards (0.405 hectare). In Old English, æcer denoted the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plough in a day; it is a word of Germanic origin, ultimately from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit ajra, Latin ager, and Greek agros, ‘field’.

Question 53

acronym

Answer 53

a word formed from the initial letters of other words, e.g. Anzac and yuppie. It is recorded from the mid 20th century, and derives from the Greek word akron ‘end, tip’ plus the combining form -onym, ultimately from the Greek onoma ‘name’.

Question 54

acropolis

Answer 54

a citadel or fortified part of an ancient Greek city, typically one built on a hill; the Acropolis is the name given to the ancient citadel at Athens, containing the Parthenon and other notable buildings, mostly dating from the 5th century BC. The word comes (in the early 17th century) from Greek akropolis, from akron ‘summit’ + polis ‘city’.

Question 55

acrostic

Answer 55

a poem, word puzzle, or other composition in which certain letters in each line form a word or words. The word is recorded from the late 16th century, and comes via French from Greek akrostikhis, from akron ‘end’ + stikhos ‘row, line of verse’.

Question 56

Actaeon

Answer 56

in Greek mythology, a hunter who, because he accidentally saw ARTEMIS bathing, was changed by her into a stag and killed by his own hounds.

Question 57

Mantell, Gideon Algernon

Answer 57

(1790–1852) , English geologist. Mantell is best known as the first person to recognize dinosaur remains as reptilian. In 1825 he published a description of the teeth of a ‘giant fossil lizard’ which he named Iguanodon.

Question 58

Actes and Monuments

Answer 58

title of the martyrology by John Foxe (1516–87); the book, less formally known as Foxe’s Martyrs, was enormously popular, going through nine editions, each with additional material, between 1563 and 1684. Intended as a history of the Christian Church through the suffering of its martyrs, it focuses in particular on the Protestant martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Question 59

Battle of Actium

Answer 59

a naval battle which took place in 31 BC off the promontory of Actium in western Greece, in the course of which Octavian defeated Mark ANTONY. This cleared the way for Octavian to become sole ruler of Rome as the emperor AUGUSTUS.

Question 60

Actors’ Studio

Answer 60

an acting workshop in New York City, founded in 1947 by Elia Kazan and others, and a leading centre of method acting.

Question 61

Adam’s apple

Answer 61

the projection formed in the neck by the thyroid cartilage, named from the belief that a piece of the forbidden fruit became lodged in Adam’s throat.