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 believe

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 sun 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 name of 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 underworld. Sluggish, gloomy, wintery

Sibyl

A witch who could predict the future

Sissyphean

Greedy king Sisphyus, 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

Vulean, 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 Gullivar’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 who’s 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 slave to his owner. From Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uriah Heep

An obsequious person (very servile, demure) from Charles Dicken’s 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 Basthsheba 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

Good Samaritan

Someone who helps others. In the Bible this person stopped to help a Jewish person who had been beaten up on the side of the wall

Handwriting on the wall

What the future holds. The wise man Daniel was the only one to be able to read it

Ishmael

One who is deemed unworthy. Son of Abraham, sent to the desert after his wife gave birth to Issac

Jacob

Grandson of Abraham, son of Issac. Later named Israel, and started the 12 tribes of israel

Job

Someone who suffers a lot but remains faithful

Job’s comforters

Friends who try to help Jacob by bringing blame, but make things worse

Judas

Traitor or treacherous kiss. One of the 12 Apostles, betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver

King Ahbab and Jezabel

Evil king of Israel and his wife. Symbol of evil Nowadays Jezebel means a brazen forward woman.

Manna

Sustaining food from a sweet bread that fell from heaven as the Israelites were crossing the desert

Original Sin/The Fall

The idea that all men are sinful after the apple was eaten

Pearl of Great Price

Something so precious somebody would lose everything for it

Philistine

A person hostile to the arts and refinement

Prodigal Son

Wasteful son who disappoints his father. From story of father who split his fortune to his two sons, and one of them wasted it on a luxurious life and then came crawling back home

Ruth and Naomi

Story of Ruth who after her husband died guided her mother-in-law back to her people

Samson and Delilah

Treacherous love story. Samson fell in love with Delilah. Delilah found out Samson’s strength came from his hair so she cut it off while he slept. Now Delilah is a name for a treacherous woman

Scapegoat

Someone who is made to blame for others

Sepulcher 

A tomb

Sodom and Gomorrah

Any place associated with wickedness or sin

Solomon

Extremely wise person, King David

Twelve Tribes of Israel

After the Hebrew people took the promised land they started twelve tribes

Atilla

Barbarian and rough leader

Berserk

Destructive and frenetically violent

Bloomer

Undergarments for dance or activities

Bowdlerize

Censure and skew content

Boycott

Protest by refusing to use, buy or deal with certain products

Canopy

Overhanging shelter, to cover or hover above

Cassanova

A man who is very attentive to women and promiscuous

Chauvinist

One with a militant devotion and glorification of one’s country

Derrick

A machine for moving heavy objects using lots of cables and pulleys

Donnybrook

Any riotous occasion

Dungaree

Casual work pants made of course fabric

El Dorado

Wealthy place, legendary city in South America

Horatio Alger

One who believe they can succeed with their own merits

Laconic

Using few words, brief

Limerick

Nonsense verse of five lines

Machiavellian

Relating to Machiavelli, characterized by deceit, cunning and trickery

Marathon

Long distance race

McCarthysim

Modern witch hunt, accusations of political disloyalty

Meander

To wander aimlessly

Mesmerize

Induce state of being hypnotized

Nostradamus 

Fortune teller

Sardonic

Bitterly sarcastic, sneering 

Shanghai

To cheat/steal, make drugs, liquor, etc. Based on Shanghai who often had sailors journey there by illicit means

Spartan

Frugal and bare, stern and brave. Named after city in Greece

Stonewall

To obstruct or delay something, defensive move

Swiftian

Satirical

Sybaritic

Luxurious, voluptuous, a person who cares a lot about luxury and pleasure

Thespian

Theater or acting

Uncle Sam

Government of people of the United States

Utopia

An imaginary and perfect society

Wagnerian

Loud, dramatic and radical music

Waterloo

Decisive or final defeat in battle