Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Damocles |
DamoclesNoun1. 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). Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Damocles" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1876. (references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Pitfall | Sword of Damocles; wolf at the door, snake in the grass, death in the pot; latency. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Sword of Damocles is a frequently used symbolic allusion to this myth, referring to the insecurity felt by those with great power due to the possibility of the power being taken away suddenly.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Damocles."
Crosswords: Damocles |
| English words defined with "Damocles": sword of Damocles. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "Damocles": Damocles' Sword ♦ Hang by a Thread ♦ Sicilian Dishes. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Damocles" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (Damocles), Spanish (Damocles). |
| "Damocles" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 96.67% of the time. "Damocles" is used about 30 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 96.67% | 29 | 64,444 |
| Noun (plural) | 3.33% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 30 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "Damocles": sword of damocles. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
damocles sword | 64 |
damocles | 32 |
damocles de espada | 4 |
damocles mythology sword | 2 |
damocles dangler | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "Damocles"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Dutch | Damocles. (various references) | |
Esperanto | Damokleso. (various references) | |
Finnish | Damokleen miekka (sword of Damocles). (various references) | |
French | Damoclès. (various references) | |
German | damoklesschwert (sword of damocles). (various references) | |
Greek | δαμόκλειος σπάθη (sword of Damocles). (various references) | |
Hungarian | Damoklész. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | amoclesday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | Dâmocles. (various references) | |
Russian | Ð"амокл. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | damaklo. (various references) | |
Spanish | Damocles. (various references) | |
Turkish | Demokles. (various references) | |
Ukranian | Ð"амокл. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Damocles" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Damaclese, dammocles, damoclees, Danakils, Dioclea, Diocles. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-d-e-l-m-o-s" | |
-1 letter: coleads, damosel, solaced. | |
-2 letters: aldose, amoles, calmed, camels, cameos, celoms, clades, closed, coaled, colead, comade, damsel, decals, dolmas, lameds, loamed, macled, macles, medals, mescal, models, scaled, seldom, solace. | |
-3 letters: acmes, acold, alecs, almes, aloes, amole, cades, calms, calos, camel, cameo, cames, cased, celom, clade, clads, clams, clods, close, coals, codas, codes, coeds, colas, colds, coled, coles, comae, comal, comas, comes, daces, dales, dames, deals, decal, decos, demos, dolce, doles, dolma, domal, domes, laced, laces, lades, lamed, lames, lased, leads, loads, loams, lodes, maced, maces, macle, males, meads, meals, medal, melds, modal, model, modes, molas, molds, moles, scald, scale, scold, socle, soled. | |
-4 letters: aced, aces, acme, ados, alec, ales, alme, alms, aloe, also, cade, cads, calm, calo, came, cams, case, cels, clad, clam, clod, coal, coda, code, cods, coed, cola, cold, cole, cols, coma, come, dace, dale, dals, dame, dams, deal, deco, dels, demo, docs, does, dole, dols, dome, doms, dose, elds, elms, lace, lacs, lade, lads, lame, lams, lase, lead, leas, load, loam, loca, lode, lose, mace, macs, made, mads, maes, male, mead, meal, meld, mels, mesa, moas, mocs, mode, mods, mola, mold, mole, mols, ocas, odea, odes, olds, olea, oles, sade, sale, same, scad, scam, seal, seam, slam, sled, sloe, soda, sola, sold, sole, soma, some. | |
-5 letters: ace, ado, ads, ale, als, cad, cam, cel, cod, col, cos, dal, dam, del, doc, doe, dol, dom, dos, eds, eld, elm, els, ems, lac, lad, lam, las, lea, led, mac, mad, mae, mas, med, mel, moa, moc, mod, mol, mos, oca, ode, ods, oes, old, ole, oms, ose, sac, sad, sae, sal, sea, sec, sel, sod, sol, som. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-d-e-l-m-o-s" | |
+1 letter: melodicas. | |
+2 letters: mislocated. | |
+3 letters: camelopards, coromandels, diplomacies, duodecimals, endoplasmic, scleroderma. | |
+4 letters: accomplished, anecdotalism, bachelordoms, declamations, decomposable, dimercaprols, domestically, domiciliates, maledictions, mendaciously, misallocated, miscataloged, sclerodermas. | |
+5 letters: anecdotalisms, chlamydospore, comradeliness, decalcomanias, documentalist, melodramatics, oleandomycins, sacerdotalism, scandalmonger, sclerodermata. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)44 61 6D 6F 63 6C 65 73 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.. .- -- --- -.-. .-.. . ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000100 01100001 01101101 01101111 01100011 01101100 01100101 01110011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)D a m o c l e s |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0044 0061 006D 006F 0063 006C 0065 0073 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3867798169787185 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage Frequency 4. Expressions | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Derivations 8. Anagrams | 9. Orthography 10. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
