| A | B |
|---|
| Abasalom | In the Bible, a son of David who staged a revolt against his father's kingship and was defeated and killed in the ensuing battle. |
| Achilles’ heel | a Greek hero in the Trojan War |
| Adonis | a handsome youth loved by Aphrodite. Killed by a wild boar |
| Aeneas | The Trojan hero of Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid, who escaped the sack of Troy and wandered for seven years before settling in Italy. |
| Aeolus | The Greek god of the wind who gave Odysseus a bag of winds to help him return to Ithaca |
| Apollo | The god of prophecy, music, medicine, and poetry, sometimes identified with the sun; twin brother of Artemis |
| Argus | a hundred-eyed monster tasked by Hera to guard Zeus' potential mate; his eyes became later formed the swirls on a peacock feather |
| Aurora | Personification of the dawn in classical mythology |
| Bacchanal | Related to the Roman god of wine and his followers, who would have frenzied parties |
| Brobdingnag | A country in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where everything was enormous |
| Cain | In the Bible, the eldest son of Adam and Eve, who murdered his brother Abel out of jealousy and was condemned to be a fugitive. |
| Casanova | an 18th-century Italian adventurer who wrote vivid accounts of his sexual encounters |
| Chauvinist | legendary French soldier famous for his devotion to Napoleon |
| Daedalus | an Athenian architect who built the labyrinth for Minos and made wings for himself and his son to escape from Crete. |
| Dido | Carthaginian queen abandoned by Aeneas; commits suicide |
| Don Juan | legendary Spanish seducer of women |
| Donnybrook | Site of a rowdy Irish fair |
| Don Quixote | The titular hero of a satirical romance by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, featuring a dreamy yet foolish protagonist |
| El Dorado | a legendary place in South America where the streets were said to be paved with gold and wealth and riches were to be had in abundance |
| Eye of the Needle | A narrow gate through which camels had to crawl on all fours |
| Falstaffian | After a character in Henry IV, Parts I and II, and The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare |
| Frankenstein | Titular figure in gothic novel by Mary Shelley |
| Galahad | the purest knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, who succeeded in his quest for the Holy Grail |
| Good Samaritan | Biblical parable about a person who rescues and cares for a stranger who had been robbed and badly hurt and had been ignored by others |
| Halcyon | A fabled bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was supposed to have had the power to calm the wind and the waves while it nested on the sea during the winter solstice. |
| Hector | The main Trojan hero in the Trojan War and the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba; killed by Achilles |
| Helen | The beautiful daughter of Zeus and Leda who was abducted by Paris; the Greek army sailed to Troy to get her back which resulted in the Trojan War |
| Hercules | Greek/Roman hero, son of Zeus and Alcmene; killed his wife and children in a fit of madness and was ordered to perform a series of monumental labors as penance |
| Horatio Alger | Hero of a series of adventure stories in which the protagonist escapes poverty by hard work and virtuous acts |
| Holy Grail | A cup or plate that, according to medieval legend, was used by Jesus at the Last Supper and that later became the object of many chivalrous quests |
| Hydra | A many-headed monster that was slain by Hercules. |
| Icarus | a son who ignored his father’s advice |
| Jekyll and Hyde | Titular reference to novel by Robert Louis Stevenson |
| Jezebel | wife of Ahab who was king of Israel; according to the Old Testament she was a cruel immoral queen who fostered the worship of Baal and tried to kill Elijah and other prophets of Israel |
| Job | a righteous man whose faith withstood severe testing by God |
| Jonah | a Minor Prophet who, for his impiety, was thrown overboard from his ship and swallowed by a large fish, remaining in its belly for three days before being cast up onto the shore unharmed. |
| Judas | one of Jesus Christ’s disciples who betrayed him by identifying him with a kiss to the Jewish leaders in exchange for thirty pieces of silver |
| Laconia | an ancient country of Southern Greece, in the southeastern Peloponnese, of which Sparta was the capital |
| Lethe | a river believed to cause forgetfulness |
| Lilliputian | After a country in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where everything was miniaturized |
| Machiavelli | Italian political theorist whose book The Prince (1513) describes the achievement and maintenance of power by a determined ruler indifferent to moral considerations. |
| Malapropism | After a character in The Rivals, a comic farce by Restoration playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who misspeaks |
| Mammon | Riches, avarice, and worldly gain personified as a false god in the New Testament |
| Manna | food provided miraculously to feed the Israelites in the wilderness |
| Mentor | The friend whom Odysseus left in charge of the household while he was at Troy and who was the teacher and protector of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son |
| Mercury | messenger god known for his speed |
| Muse | One of the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, who inspired and presided over the different creative arts. |
| Nemesis | the goddess of divine retribution |
| Nirvana | In Buddhism and Hinduism, the state of enlightenment that transcends the cycle of reincarnation |
| Nostradamus | French physician and astrologer who wrote Centuries (1555), a book of prophecies. |
| Oedipus | Hero of a tragedy by Sophocles; the son of Laius and Jocasta, who was abandoned at birth and unwittingly killed his father and then married his mother. |
| Original Sin | the disobedience of Adam and Eve |
| Pandora's box | Greek story explaining how evil and ill will came into the world |
| Pearl of Great Price | Biblical parable used to describe the value of the kingdom of heaven |
| Philistine | people of coastal Palestine, who made war on the Israelites |
| Phoenix | A bird in Egyptian mythology that lived in the desert for 500 years and then consumed itself by fire, later to rise renewed from its ashes. |
| Pollyanna | titular heroine of a 1913 novel and later movie in which a young girl is adopted by her very wealthy aunt; upon the girl’s arrival, the dispirited town in which her aunt lives becomes miraculously pleasant and healthy due to the gladness the child has brought. |
| Prodigal Son | Biblical parable of a son granted a warm homecoming despite having squandered his inheritance |
| Prometheus | Titan who stole fire of the gods and tricked the gods on behalf of humans |
| Proteus | sea god who could change his shape at will |
| Pygmalion | sculptor who fell in love with his carving, which was transformed into a human woman by Aphrodite |
| Pyrrhus | Greek king who suffered heavy losses in defeating the Romans in 279 B.C., |
| Samson | In the Bible, an Israelite judge and warrior who used his enormous strength to fight the Philistines, to whom he was ultimately betrayed by his mistress, Delilah, who cut the lock of hair which was the source of his strength |
| Simon Legree | the cruel slave dealer in Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Siren song | One of a group of sea nymphs who lured mariners to destruction on the rocks surrounding their island |
| Spartan | Natives of an ancient Greek city noted for their toughness in enduring pain and hardship |
| Sisyphus | In Greek mythology, king condemned to push a rock uphill until it falls back down, over and over again |
| Solomon | in the Bible, son of David known for his wisdom |
| Svengali | the hypnotist villain in the novel Trilby by George du Maurier |
| Sword of Damocles | hung by a hair over a would-be ruler’s head to teach him a moral lesson |
| Tantalus | a king who was condemned to stand in water under a fruit tree. Whenever he tried to drink or eat, the water or fruit receded beyond his reach. |
| Waterloo | A town of central Belgium near Brussels where Napoleon fell to the British |
| Uncle Tom | the main character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel |
