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Faust

[ foust ]

noun

  1. Jo·hann [yoh, -hahn], c1480–c1538, German magician, alchemist, and astrologer.
  2. the chief character of a medieval legend, represented as selling his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.
  3. (italics) a tragedy by Goethe (Part 1, 1808; Part 2, 1832).
  4. (italics) an opera (1859) by Charles Gounod.


Faust

/ faʊst; ˈfaʊstəs /

noun

  1. German legend a magician and alchemist who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power


Faust

  1. A legendary sixteenth-century magician and practitioner of alchemy , who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for youth, knowledge, and power. Christopher Marlowe, a sixteenth-century English poet, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote famous plays about him.


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Notes

A “Faustian” bargain is one in which a person is willing to make extreme sacrifices for power or knowledge without considering the ultimate cost.

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Example Sentences

Unfortunately, as Faust told me, “there’s no one cookbook for how to vet an idea and how to say when we’re done.”

No, answered Faust; she suspected that Harvard was no different.

Tilghman said she asked her peer, President Drew Gilpin Faust of Harvard, if she was surprised by what they found at Princeton.

Once, when a boy, he had seen Henry Irving in Faust; he saw the devils on the haunted mountain; he heard their hideous cries.

There is a passage where Faust, in his most discontented mood, falls foul of history—in his talk to Wagner, if I am not mistaken.

Though "Faust" did not strike the public very much at first, it is the greatest theatrical success I have ever had.

Barbot sang the difficult part of Faust like the great musician he is.

The deficiencies we have indicated in Mr. Taylor's work are more visible in the second part of 'Faust' than in the first.

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FauréFaustian