| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Babbitt | an American middle-class businessman who was vastly pleased with himself; not tolerant |
| Brobdingnagian | a giant as tall as a steeple; synonym for gigantic |
| bumble | an officious, puffed-up, and pompous person; one to be avoided; from Oliver Twist |
| Cinderella | any girl who goes from rags to riches |
| Don Juan | an unsavory lover |
| Falstaffian | bragging, bawdy, good-humored fat man; for comic relief |
| Frankenstein | monster that destroys its creator |
| Friday | a helper who is dependable, cheerful, and hardworking; from Robinson Crusoe |
| Galahad | most noble and pure of all knights |
| Jekyll and Hyde | a person who alternates between good and evil |
| lilliputian | six-inch people; miniature of tiny |
| Little Lord Fauntleroy | any little boy who is too-good-to-be-true |
| lothario | well-known lover from The Fair Penitent |
| malapropism | from The Rivals; means an hilarious use of words |
| Milquetoast | from The Timid Soul; a wimp |
| Pickwickian | comments were "not in accordance with usual meaning;" understood in an esoteric, special sense |
| Pollyanna | any little girl who is too-good-to-be-true |
| pooh-bah | the Lord-High-Everything-Els; a politician who holds several offices |
| quixotic | noble but unrealistic; from one who imagined himself a knight |
| robot | a rebel; one who exists and works without thought, who does what he/she is told |
| rodomontade | vain boasting; empty bluster |
| scrooge | penny-pinching miser with a heart like the Grinch's; a curmudgeon |
| Simon Legree | anyone who works others without mercy |
| Svengali | anyone who controls others by seemingly mysterious means |
| Tartuffe | complete moral hypocrite; anyone who pretends great devotion to religion but lives a secretly immoral life. |
| Uncle Tom | a black seen by other blacks as being too quick to cooperate with white people |
| Uriah Heep | from David Copperfield; a hypocritical and holier than thou person |
| Walter Mitty | one who dreams and fantasizes |
| yahoo | an unlovely lot; a crudball, a stupid person |
| Achilles' heel | place of vulnerability |
| aeolian | referring to winds |
| Apollo and Adonis | a handsome or desirable male |
| Atlantic/Atlas | indicates strength |
| aurora | the dawn |
| bacchanal | an orgy |
| bacchanalian | like a wild orgy or party |
| calliope | steam whistle or steam organ; anything making a shrill sound |
| Cassandra | one who prophesies trouble: doom prophet |
| centaur | a rider who seems part of his horse |
| chimera | imaginative creature; wild, scary dream of fancy |
| cupidity | greed or avarice |
| erotic | pertaining to sexual love |
| furor | winged creatures with snakes for hair who committed murders in their families |
| fury | an avenging spirit |
| gorgon | ugly, frightening person; turns one to stone |
| halcyon | peaceful, tranquil |
| harpy | part woman, part bird |
| hector | to bully or pick on; to annoy exceedingly |
| Helen (of Troy) | a woman of incomparable beauty; a perfect 10 |
| Herculean | extraordinarily strong or large; difficult, dangerous |
| hydra-headed | an evil with many sources, difficult to control |
| iridescent | having a rainbowlike play of colors, like a soap bubble |
| jovial | good-natured, jolly expansive in nature |
| Junoesque | queenly, statuesque, strikingly handsome (of woman) |
| lethargy | sluggishness, torpor, languor, lassitude |
| martial | warlike; suited for army or military life |
| mentor | respected guide, teacher, or counselor |
| mercurial | volatile; as applied to mood, easily changeable |
| mnemonics | the art of improving memory; a mnemonic device assists memory |
| morphine | an addictive narcotic |
| muse | source of inspiration or guiding genius |
| narcissism | self-love and admiration; extreme egotism |
| nemesis | relentless pursuer of evildoers; jinx, bane |
| Neptune | figuratively speaking, the oceans; thinks the world emerged from water |
| odyssey | long wandering or voyage |
| Olympian | majestic, superior to other, regal or commanding |
| paean | hymn or song of praise |
| Pandora's box | source of ill or evil; a malign influence needing to be kept under control |
| Parnassus | having to do with poems; to climb Mount Parnassus is to write poetry |
| pegasus | extremely swift hoarse; poetic inspiration |
| phoenix | symbol of immortality; something that died and was reborn |
| plutocracy | government by the weathy |
| Promethean | unusually original and creative; life-giving |
| protean | assuming many shapes or forms; greatly adaptable |
| psyche | the rational and spiritual in us; the soul or mind |
| saturnalia | wild party or orgy |
| sibyl | prophetess; fortune-teller |
| Sisyphean | needing to be redone, time and time again, unending |
| stentorian | extremely loud, like a town crier's voice |
| stygian | gloomy; dark; hellish and frightening |
| tantalize | to torment or tease |
| terpisichorean | referring to dance |
| titanic | gigantic in size, power, or both |
| volcanoes | erupting mountains |
| vulcanize | chemical treatment for rubber to enhance uses |
| Zeus | ruler, king |
| Attila | the Hun; typically uncouth |
| bacitracin | Marvelous for skin ailments |
| berserk | eighth-century norse warrior, named after the bear skin he'd had tailored for war; fought like crazy man |
| bloomer | amelia bloomer, forerunner of women's liberation; urged women to give up long heavy skirts and wear her idea of trousers. means fullish pants |
| bowdlerize | decided that her should clean up literature; to rewrite to the detriment |
| boycott | irish land agent for an absentee owner; to refrain, as a group from using or purchasing to force change |
| Casanova | italian hunk who must have been irresistible to women: pro lover |
| chauvinist | soldier who worshiped Napoleon; so devoted to a cause that judgement is affected; a blind patriot |
| derrick | hangman in England; any apparatus that hoist by means of a tackle at end of a spar; noose |
| Horatio Alger | poor boy making good in the end; like male cinderella |
| Machiavellian | Renaissance Italian statesman, means untrustworthy, conniving and sneaky |
| McCarthyism | suggests with-hunting and is a strongly negative term |
| mesmerize | hypnosis. mesmerist is a hypnotist |
| Nostradamus | fortune-teller, a soothsayer |
| Pyrrhic | describing a dubious victory, when more is lost than gained |
| Rabelaisian | marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature or bold naturalism |
| stonewall | not to yield an inch |
| Swiftian | strongly scornful of mocking |
| thespian | an actor |
| Uncle Sam | represents United States; maybe named after Sam Wilson |
| Wagnerian | physical size and impressive power |
| bohemian | nomadic or rootless; free, nontraditional life |
| canopy | cloth covering fixed or held above a person for protection |
| donnybrook | marked by fighting and brawling |
| dungaree | jeans. dating back to Dhungaree, India |
| El Dorado | place of incredible wealth or good fortune |
| hackney | a horse; special horse of english breed |
| laconic | brief and succinct of speech; to say as little as possible; from the spartans |
| limerick | town in ireland; five-line poems that rhyme |
| marathon | go on forever; from greece |
| meander | goes slowly and twists and turns |
| sardonic | superior, disdainful, scornful and generally unpleasant |
| shanghai | fooled or coerced into a nasty job |
| Spartan | to suffer pain or unhappiness stoically; to live without luxuries |
| sybaritic | life that is fun and luxuries almost exclusively |
| utopia | the perfect place; although literally means "no place" |
| Waterloo | dismal performance; from Napoleons failed final battle |
Combine with other sets
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