Flashcards: ALL Allusions (definitions)
About these flashcards
Created by:
sarahma88 on January 4, 2010
Subjects:
Description:
all allusion words
Groups:
My Friends On Here, mrcAP, KC Seniors
Log in to favorite or report as inappropriate.
All 110 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 adonic | very beautiful or handsome; physically perfect |
| amazonian | powerful and aggressive; warlike; masculine |
| aphrodisiac | exciting desire or a stimulant |
| bacchanalian | a drunken feast sometimes involving sexual activity |
| cain | a murderer |
| cynic | fault-finding critic |
| golgotha | place of intensive suffering or sacrifice |
| gorgonize | hypnotize; petrify |
| helium | a colorless and odorless chemical element with the atomic number 2 |
| herculean | requiring great strength; very hard to perform |
| hypnosis | a sleep-like condition in which the person becomes susceptible to suggestion |
| iridescent | displaying lustrous colors like those of a rainbow |
| iris | plants with narrow sword-shaped leaves and variously colored flowers; circular diaphragm from the colored portion of the eye |
| ishmael | wanderer; social outcast |
| janus | one who is two-faced; deceiver; double talker |
| jezebel | a wicked, shameless, imprudent, and abandoned woman |
| judas | traitor; one who betrays under the guise of friendship and for reward |
| labyrinth | intricate passages, maze; something complex or tortuous in structure, arrangement, or character |
| laconic | concise to the point of seeming rudeness; short, brief, terse language |
| lethal | of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly, fatal; causing great harm or destruction |
| lucifer | a proud rebellious person; the planet Venus when appearing as the morning start; the name of the devil |
| machiavellian | characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty |
| malapropism | garbled meaning; misuse of words |
| mentor | a wise and trusted counselor or teacher; an influential senior sponsor or supporter |
| mercurial | changeable, volatile, fickle, flightly; animated; sprightly; quick-witted |
| mnemonic | assisting memory; related to memory |
| narcissism | egotism; love of self |
| nemesis | one who inflicts vengeance; rival; retributive justice |
| nimrod | hunter, builder |
| pandora | one who is very curious and causes problems |
| philistine | one who is unenlightened, uncultured, prosaid, commonplace |
| phlegmatic | sluggish; not easily aroused or moved |
| plutocrat | one who has power or influence due to his wealth; one who governs by wealth |
| pollyanna | one who finds good in everything; optimist |
| psyche | the human soul, spirit, or mind |
| quixotic | idealist, but impractical |
| sardonic | bitterly scornful; disdainfully or sneeringly derisive |
| saturnine | not easily excited to action or emotion; heavy; grave; gloomy; dull; sullen |
| sisyphean | endlessly laborious or futile |
| socratic | questioning used to establish an idea or opinion or find the truth |
| spartan | courageous; disciplined; stoical; hardy |
| spoonerism | an accidental transposition of sounds, usually the initial sounds, of two or more words |
| utopia | any place of ideal perfection |
| achilles heel | a weakness that leads to failure; vulnerable point |
| ambrosial | Exceptionally pleasing to taste or smell; especially delicious or fragrant |
| arachnid | any wingless, carnivorous arthropod that has a body divided into two parts and four pairs of segmented legs |
| argonaut | A person engaged in a dangerous but potentially rewarding adventure |
| argus | Any observant or vigilant person; a watchful guardian |
| aristotelian | Practical thinking |
| armageddon | The place where the final battle will be fought between the forces of good and evil; the last and completely destructive battle; any great or crucial conflict |
| atlas | One who bares a heavy burden |
| auroral | Of or like the dawn |
| babylon | City or place of great luxury, sensuality, and often vice and corruption |
| bobby | A police officer |
| caesar | Any emperor or dictator |
| calliope | A musical instrument consisting of a set of harsh-sounding steam whistles that are activated by a keyboard |
| canaan | Any land of promise; paradise |
| centaur | A double-natured person; wild, barbaric disorderly conduct |
| chauvinist | A person with a prejudiced belief in superiority of his or her own kind; extreme bellicose nationalist |
| chimerical | Unreal, imaginary; visionary |
| cinderella | A person who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect |
| cupidity | Inordinate desire for wealth; strong desire |
| delilah | A woman who is considered to be dangerously seductive |
| elysian | blissful, delightful |
| epicurean | Fond of luxury (food) and sensual pleasures (candles) |
| euthanasia | mercy killing |
| fate | Something that unavoidable befalls a person; fortune; lot |
| fauna | All animial life of a particular region or time |
| gerrymander | the act of deliberately rearranging the boundaries of congressional districts to influence the outcome of elections |
| goliath | giant |
| gordian knot | Intricate, difficult problem |
| grace | Beauty, charm, loveliness |
| hell | Everlasting suffering; a situation or place of misery, destruction, or evil |
| homeric | Of epic proportions; heroic |
| hyacinth | a bulbous plant that is widely cultivated for its cylindrical cluster of fragrant flowers in a variety of colors |
| hydra | A constellation near the equator of the southern sky near Cancer and Virgo; a monster with nine heads which when slain gave birth to two new heads; a freshwater plant (polyp); a persistent or multifaceted problem that can't be eradicated by a single effort |
| hygiene | A science of the establish and maintenance of health; conditions or practices (as cleanliness) conductive to health |
| hyperion | Sun related; representation of light/beauty |
| icarian | Too daring; foolhardy; rash |
| jovial | Endowed with or characterized by a hearty joyous hummor or a spirit of good-fellowship |
| juvenile | A young person; youth, a characterisitic of a young person; immature |
| liberty | The state of being free; a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant |
| lilliputian | Extremely small; tiny; diminutive; petty trivial; a very small person; a person who is narrow or petty in outlook |
| martial | Inclined or disposed to war; warlike; of, suitable for, or associated with war or the armed forces; characteristic or befitting of a warrior |
| maudlin | Tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental (because of drunkenness) |
| meander | Turning or winding stream; winding path or course; to follow a winding course; to wander aimlessly |
| medusa | Ugly, hideous |
| midas | An unbelievably wealthy man; "the golden touch" |
| muse | To reflect; to meditate in silence; source of inspiration; guiding genius poet |
| museum | Devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest |
| pandemonium | Wild tumult; disorder; noise |
| peter pan | One who stays young at heart |
| pharisee | One who follows doctrines, rules, and ceremonies precisely; a sanctimonious hypocrite |
| platonic | Spiritual; without physical desire |
| procrustes | One who is harsh or inflexible into fitting into a preconceived idea, system, etc. |
| prometheus | One who is unique and daringly original |
| protean | Exceedingly variable; assuming different forms |
| sadistic | Showing abnormal delight in cruelty or pain; a sexual perversion in which gratification is received by torturing the loved person |
| satyr | A lecherous man |
| shibboleth | A criterion, test, password, or watchword; a party cry or pet phrase |
| sibyl | A prophetess; fortune-teller |
| siren | Seductive women; a device for sounding signals of warning |
| sodom | A city or country notorious for vice and corruption |
| somnolent | Sleepy, drowsy; inclined to sleep |
| tantalize | To tease or torment by repeated frustration |
| terminal | A fixed period of time; end; fatal |
| terpsichore | Choreography; the art of dancing; terpsichord=dance |
| titanic | Of enormous magnitude, force, or power |
| vestal | Chaste or pure |
| vulcanization | Process of strengthening rubber by adding sulfur and/or other chemicals |