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Sword of Damocles - 4 dictionary results

sword of Damocles

–noun
Damocles (def. 2).

Origin:
1810–20

Dam⋅o⋅cles

[dam-uh-kleez]
–noun
1. a flatterer who, having extolled the happiness of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, was seated at a banquet with a sword suspended over his head by a single hair to show him the perilous nature of that happiness.
2. sword of Damocles, any situation threatening imminent harm or disaster.

Dam⋅o⋅cle⋅an [dam-uh-klee-uhn] , adjective
sword of Damocles  
n.  Constant threat; imminent peril: "the Latin American debt, overhanging American banks like the sword of Damocles" (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)

[After Damocles.]

sword of Damocles

Also, Damocles' sword. Impending disaster, as in The likelihood of lay-offs has been a sword of Damocles over the department for months. This expression alludes to the legend of Damocles, a servile courtier to King Dionysius I of Syracuse. The king, weary of Damocles' obsequious flattery, invited him to a banquet and seated him under a sword hung by a single hair, so as to point out to him the precariousness of his position. The idiom was first recorded in 1747. The same story gave rise to the expression hang by a thread.

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