SAT/Allusion List #6

Philistines/Philistinism

Context: Old Testament; enemies of the Israelites; David; giant Philistine warrior, Goliath

Def: a person with no appreciation for culture and whose tastes are commonplace

Faust/Faustian Bargain

Context: plays by Christopher Marlon (Dr. Faustus) and Golthe (Faust); Mephistophele; sells his soul; have everything he desires; despair

Def: refers to sacrificing one’s self of one’s values in exchange for getting what one desires, often material wealth

Coals to Newcastle

Context: coal-mining city in England; superfluous

Def: giving a superfluous gift or making a contribution that is gratuitous/unecessary

Freudian Slip

Context: Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and psychotherapist; subconscious mind in human behavior

Def: an unintentional or accidental error in speech or action that reveals one’s subconscious thoughts or desires

Sisyphus/Sisyphera

Context: Greek mythology; King who offended Zeus; Hades, rolling a giant bolder up a hill; roll back down to the bottom; start the task over

Def: a seemingly endless, perhaps futile task

Methuselah

Context: oldest of the patriarchs in the bible; 969 years old

Def: refer to an extremely old person

Scylla and Charybdis

Context: Greek mythology, many-headed sea monster; cave on one side of the narrow strait; whirlpool on the opposite side; steer the ship very carefully between the two

Def: caught between two equal dangers; avoiding one means getting closer to the other

Holy Grail

Context: Medieval legend → object of quest; cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper; legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; perfection

Def: an object that is extremely desirable or valuable and which is obtainable only after a long and difficult quest

Luddites

Context: British laborers in the early 1800s; opposed industrialization; threaten their jobs; smashed textile machinery

Def: someone who opposes change, especially industrial or technological advances

Pass the Buck

Context: in poker, marker that was passed to the person whose turn it was to deal; Harry Truman

Def: to shift responsibility (and often blame) to another person

Babylon

Context: capital of the ancient Babylonian Empire; luxury and corruption; Jews were exiles; the prophet of Daniel

Def: a place of decadence and corruption

Phoenix/Rising from the Ashes

Context: mythological bird; one of a kind; 5 or 6 hundred years; burn itself to death and then rise from the ashes

Def: symbolize rebirth or resurrection; describe surmounting great obsiticles

Xanadu

Context: Mongolia; Mongol emperor of China, Kublai Khan; magnificent resilience; poem “Kublai Khan” (1816) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Def: any magnificent, beautiful, almost magical place

Muckrackers

Context: President Theodore Roosevelt; reform-minded journalists; badge of honor; exposed corruption or promoted needed reforms

Def: authors or journalists who exposed corruption

Sine quel non

Context: Latin; “without which, nothing”

Def: refers to the essential ingredient without which something would be impossible

Marauder

raider, intruder

Emit

to send or give out; to express, utter; to put in circulation as money

Engulf

to surround or enclose completely

Umbrage

sense of injury or insult; to take offense, displeasure

Abominate

extreme hatred, loathing; something despised

Rivet

something that fastens two parts together; also to hold the attention of

Rudimentary

basic, crude, undeveloped; fundamental principles or skills

Abridge

to shorten; to condense; to diminish; to curtail

Fester

to generate pus; become a source of resentment or irritation

Entomb

to place in as if in a tomb or a grave