| Augean stables | |
| —pl n | |
| Greek myth the stables, not cleaned for 30 years, where King Augeas kept 3000 oxen. Hercules diverted the River Alpheus through them and cleaned them in a day | |
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
Stables that figured in the Greek myth of the Labors of Hercules. The stables, which belonged to King Augeas, housed a large herd of cattle and had not been cleaned for years. Hercules was ordered to clean out these filthy stalls. He did so by diverting the course of two rivers so that they flowed through the stables.