Common Allusions in Literature

Adonis

handsome young man (Aphrodite’s lover)

Aeolin

anything pertaining to the wind; Aphrodite loved him

Argus-eyed

omniscient

Aurora

early morning or sunrise (Eos)

Bacchanal

wild, drunken party or rowdy (god of wine Bacchus)

Cassandra

person who predicts misfortune but isn’t belived

Furor

Wild enthusiasm or excitement

Halcyon

calm, peaceful, tranquility

Hector

to bully (killed Achilles’ friend Patroclus)

Iridescent

play of colors producing rainbow effects

Jovial

good-humored (from the word Jove of the Roman god Jupiter)

Junoesque

marked by stately beauty (Juno, wife of Jupiter)

Mercurial

suddenly cranky or changeable

Niobe

Mournful woman

Paean

song for joy (ritual epithet of Apollo)

Parnassus

Mountain was sacred to arts and literature

Plutocracy

government by the wealthy

Protean

Taking many forms/versatility

Pygmalion

someone who tries to fashion someone into the person they desire.

Pyrrhic victory

too costly victory

Saturnalia

period of unrestrained revelry

Saturnine

sluggish, groomy, marose

Sibyl

witch or sorceress

Stentorian

having a loud voice

Stygian

dark and gloomy (named after the river Styx)

Terpsichorean

Pertaining to dance (named after one of the nine Muses)

Vulcanize

treat rubber with sulfur to increase strength and elasticity.

Babbitt

A self-satisfied person concerned with business and middle-class ideals; narrow-minded and a model for self-satisfaction.

Brobdingnagian

gigantic, enormous

Don Juane

a libertine, profligate, man obsessed with seducing women

Don Quixote

someone with impossibly idealistic dreams

Panglossian

blindly or misleadingly optimistic

Falstaffian

full of wit

Friday

faithful and willing attendant

Galahad

pure man with limited ambition

Lilliputian

descriptive of a very small person

Little Lord Fauntleroy

either a certain type of children’s clothing or to be beautiful

Lothario

used to describe a man whose chief interest is seducing women

Malpropism

humorous unintentionally misuse of a word or phrase

Pickwickian

Humorous and sometimes derogatory

Pollyanna

Tendency to find good in everything

Pooh-Bah

a pompous, ostentatious official; holding many offices

Quixotic

having foolish or extremely impractical ideas

Rodomontade

bluster or boasting (Orlando Inamorato)

Simon Legree

harsh and demanding person in authority (Uncle Tom’s Cabin)

Svengail

person with hypnotic power (1984)

Tartuffe

hypocrite

Uncle Tom

someone who lacked courage towards his service like that of a slave to his owner

Uriah Herp

obedient person (David Copperfield)

Walter Mitty

Nonadventurous person who seeks to escape reality

Yahoo

stupid person (Guilliver’s Travels)

Absolom

Son who brings heartache to his father (third son of David)

Eye of the Needle

Very difficult task

Filthy Lucre

money or profits

Good Samaritan

someone who helps another

Ishmael

Someone who is exiled for being perceived as unworthy

Jonah

one who brings bad luck

Manna

sustaining life-giving source or food

Handwriting on the wall

what the future holds

Sodom and Gomorrah

place associated with wickedness

Ruth and Naomi

faithful friends

Canopy

shelter

Casanova

man who is amorously and gallantly attentive to women

Chauvinist

one who has militaristic devotion

Derrick

machine for moving heavy objects

Donnybrook

any riotous occasion (Donnybrook Fair)

Dunagaree

style of casual work pants

Hackney

ruin by overuse

Horatio Alger

one who believes one can make it by their own merits

Laconic

Brief in words (Spartans)

Stonewall

Hinder by evasive; delaying tactics (Stonewall Jackson)

Swiftian

satirical (Johnathan Swift)

Sybaritic

luxurious (Sybars, Greece)

Thespians

having to do with theater or acting

Wagnerian

style of msuic: loud, dramatic, radical (Wagner)