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Damocles

   Also found in: Acronyms, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.17 sec.
Dam·o·cles  (dm-klz) fl. fourth century b.c.
Greek courtier to Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, who according to legend was forced to sit at a banquet table under a sword suspended by a single hair to demonstrate the precariousness of a king's fortunes.
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Noun1.Damocles - the Greek courtier to Dionysius the Elder who (according to legend) was condemned to sit under a naked sword that was suspended by a hair in order to demonstrate to him that being a king was not the happy state Damocles had said it was (4th century BC)


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Damocles has seen the sword suspended by a hair over his head, and though a good man need not be made less valuable by such a knowledge, the feast shall not henceforth have the same flavour.
The Mirror of the Sea by Conrad, Joseph View in context
The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout; while, suspended from a bough, the terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted damocles.
Moby Dick LXVIII-CXXXIV by Melville, Herman View in context
Like Damocles at his celebrated banquet, Rebecca perpetually beheld, amid that gorgeous display, the sword which was suspended over the heads of her people by a single hair.
Ivanhoe by Scott, Walter View in context
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