Allusions Flashcards

Achilles Heel

Vulnerable spot, one weakness a person has.

Adonis

Handsome man.

Aeolian

Anything wind related, wind god.

Argus-eyed

Omniscient being, all seeing.

Athena

Goddess of wisdom.

Atlantean

Carried globe on his shoulders.

Aurora

Early morning/sunrise.

Bacchanal/Bacchanalian

Drunk party, celebration.

Calliope

Beautiful voice, whistling.

Cassandra

Predicting fortune but not believed.

Centaur

Man-horse creature.

Chimera

Lion-goat-snake creature.

Cupidity

Roman god of love (Cupid).

Erotic

Greek god of love (Eros).

Furor

Three furies, rage/anger.

Gorgon

Ugly terrible person, relates to Medusa.

Halcyon

Tranquil, peaceful bird.

Harpy

Nagging woman that was part bird.

Hector

Bully, brave Trojan warrior.

Helen

Relating to Greece, beautiful woman, cause of the Trojan War.

Hydra-Headed

Having many heads that you can’t control, Hydra the 9 headed serpent.

Iridescent

Iris, god of rainbow.

Jovial

Good humoured, Jupiter-related.

Junoesque

Juno, goddess of light, birth, marriage.

Lethargy

The river Lethe, causes drowsiness.

Martial

Mars, Roman god of War, warriors (martial law).

Medea

Sorceress, enchantress.

Mentor

Trusted counselor, friend of Odysseus’s son.

Mercurial

Relating to the god Mercury, cranky & changeable.

Hermes

Messenger god, inventor, conductor of souls.

Mnemonics

A device used to aid memory, personification of Mnemosyne, who gave birth to the nine muses.

Morphine

Bitter white substance used to relieve pain and induce sleep, Morpheus the god of shapeshifting.

Muse

Creation of inspiration, daughter of Mnemosyne and Zeus, divine singers.

Narcissism

Echo, a nymph who was in love with himself, drowned staring at himself in a pond.

Nemesis

Goddess of punishment and curbing excess.

Neptune

Roman god of the ocean.

Niobe

God whose children were killed by Apollo and Artemis. Turned into a rock that was always crying.

Odyssey

A long journey, named after the journey Odysseus took back from the Trojan War.

Olympian

Majestic, named after the 12 Mount Olympus Gods.

Paean

Song of joy, god of healing Paeon who took care of Hades at some point.

Pandora’s Box

Something that opens the door for bad occurrences, girl named Pandora opened a box and was punished by Zeus.

Parnassus

Mountain that was a center of art and poetry. Parnassus was the son of Poseidon and a nymph.

Pegasus

Winged horse that came from Medusa after she died.

Phoenix

Symbol of immortality/rebirth. Named after Egyptian bird that consumed itself in the desert.

Plutocracy

Wealth government, named after the god Pluton, who had fields rich with ores and minerals.

Promethean

Life bringing, creative or original. Named after Titan who gave humans fire.

Protean

Proteus, god of sea creatures and shapeshifting.

Psyche

Human soul/mind. Was also the name of the maiden who Cupid made immortal.

Pygmalion

A male that tries to fashion someone into the person he desires.

Phyrric Victory

A victory at a very high cost.

Saturnalia

Roman festival on winter solstice, symbolic of revelry and celebration.

Saturnine

Named after the god Saturn, who presided over the underworld. Sluggish, gloomy, wintery.

Sibyl

A witch who could predict the future.

Sissyphean

Greedy king Sisyphus, who for his actions was doomed to roll a rock up a hill.

Stentorian

Character in the Iliad with a loud voice, had a shouting match with Hermes and lost.

Stygian

River Styx, dark, gloomy and poisonous river.

Tantalize

King Tantalus, punished to live in a river where everything tasty was just out of reach because he was prideful.

Terpsichorean

Terpsichore, one of the nine muses, muse of dance.

Titanic

Tityus the giant, son of Zeus and Elara.

Volcanoes

Vulcan, Roman God of fire.

Vulcanize

To treat rubber with sulfur to make it stretch.

Zeus

King of the Gods, ruler of Mt Olympus.

Babbitt

Content middle-class person concerned with business but also narrow minded.

Brobdingnagian

Gigantic, enormous, named after land of giants in the book Gulliver’s Travels.

Bumble

To be clumsy, faltering.

Cinderella

A character that suddenly gains wealth after obscurity.

Don Juan

Man obsessed with seducing women.

Don Quixote

Overly idealistic person with delusional dreams.

Panglossian

Mindlessly optimistic in a dumb way.

Falstaffian

Witty, bawdy humour.

Frankenstein

Anything that threatens its creator.

Friday

A faithful and willing servant.

Galahad

Pure and noble man with limited ambition from the legends of King Arthur.

Jekyll and Hyde

Person with a two sided/split personality.

Lilliputian

A very small, demure, trivial or petty person.

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Beautiful pampered little boy, infant.

Lothario

A man whose chief interest is seducing a woman (like Don Juan).

Malapropism

Timid, weak, unassertive person.

Pickwickian

Humorous, sometimes derogatory.

Pollyanna

A relentlessly optimistic person that finds good in everything (similar to Panglossian).

Pooh-bah

Pompous official, someone who has a lot of jobs but is bad at all of them.

Quixotic

Having foolish ideas of honor or silly schemes (like Don Quixote).

Robot

A machine that looks like a human being.

Rodomontade

A blustering boasting person, named after the bragging knight Rodomont from the book Orlando Inamorato.

Scrooge

Bitter, greedy person.

Simon Legree

Harsh cruel demanding person in a position of leadership/authority.

Svengali

Person with irresistible hypnotic power.

Tartuffe

Hypocritical person.

Uncle Tom

Timid person, acts like a slave to his owner. From Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Uriah Heep

An obsequious person (very servile, demure) from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.

Walter Mitty

A commonplace person who daydreams often.

Yahoo

A boring, crass and stupid person.

Absolom

A son that disappoints his father. Third son of David, exiled and killed.

Alpha and Omega

Beginning and end.

Cain

Killed his brother Abel out of jealousy.

Daniel

Person of wisdom and accurate judgement from the Old Testament.

David and Bathsheba

A big sin, after King David had an affair with Bathsheba and got her pregnant. David then sent her husband to get killed, and after this crime, he lost his fortune.

Eye of the Needle

A difficult task, narrow gateway. Jesus used this when describing how hard it was for the rich to get to heaven.

Filthy Lucre

Money or profit.

Goliath

Large person, slain by David when he was a young boy.