Advertisement

Advertisement

Damocles

[ 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.


Damocles

/ ˈdæməˌkliːz /

noun

  1. classical myth a sycophant forced by Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, to sit under a sword suspended by a hair to demonstrate that being a king was not the happy state Damocles had said it was See also Sword of Damocles
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


Discover More

Derived Forms

  • ˌDamoˈclean, adjective
Discover More

Other Words From

  • Dam·o·cle·an [dam-, uh, -, klee, -, uh, n], adjective
Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. sword of Damocles, any situation threatening imminent harm or disaster.
Discover More

Example Sentences

It hung a sword of Damocles over laws requiring political campaigns to disclose their donors.

From Vox

Those threats have served as a sort of twin sword of Damocles, forcing studios, networks and agencies to do the right thing after decades of denying there was a problem.

Then as now, the majority of Americans had little interest in examining the nuclear sword of Damocles their fear had wrought.

Of course, if we can mix our classical references, Russia has its Sword of Damocles to cut this Gordian Knot.

Did he understand that he would now have to live with a sword—not of Damocles but of polonium—hanging over his head?

The United States insists that the option of force—a sword of Damocles—be included in any Security Council resolution.

But that particular sword of Damocles has floated off into the ether.

The sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, to make them remember.

And Damocles knew the sword was there, or there'd have been no point in it.

The fabled sword of Damocles hangs suspended over my head, still it may never fall.

He alludes to the story of Damocles, a flatterer of one of those Sicilian tyrants, namely Dionysius.

The Damocles' sword of defiant authority was suspended over the head of every Russian writer.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


damnyankeeDamocles, sword of