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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Damocles

courtier of Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse; his name in Greek means literally "fame of the people," from demos, damos "people" (see demotic) + -kles "fame," a common ending in Greek proper names (as in Sophocles, Pericles), from PIE *klew-es, from root *kleu- "to hear" (see listen). To teach Damocles how a tyrant lives, Dionysius seated him at a banquet with a sword suspended above his head by a single hair.

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Damocles (disambiguation)

Damocles (main article) was a legendary Greek figure.

Damocles or the Sword of Damocles can also refer to:

  • 5335 Damocles, an asteroid
  • Damocles (video game), a 1990 science fiction videogame
  • The Sword of Damocles (virtual reality), the first virtual reality system
  • "The Sword of Damocles", a song from the musical The Rocky Horror Show
  • "Sword of Damocles", a song from the 2014 Judas Priest album Redeemer of Souls
  • Tree of Damocles, an alternative name for the Oroxylum indicum tree
  • Damocles, a French laser designator and forward looking infrared pod, made by the Thales Group and used on military aircraft.
  • a super weapon in the 1996 movie Escape from L.A.
  • a strategic weapon in the anime Code Geass
Damocles

Damocles (; Dāmoklē̂s, literally: "fame of the people") is a figure featured in a single moral anecdote commonly referred to as "the Sword of Damocles", an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. The Damocles of the anecdote was an obsequious courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a 4th-century BC tyrant of Syracuse, Sicily.

The anecdote apparently figured in the lost history of Sicily by Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 356–260 BC). The Roman orator Cicero may have read it in Diodorus Siculus. He made use of it in his Tusculanae Disputationes, V. 21, by which means it passed into the European cultural mainstream.

Damocles (targeting pod)

The Damocles is a 3rd generation targeting pod, modular, eye-safe laser, high performance pod selected by the French Air Force for its attack fighter aircraft fleet.

Damocles is made by Thales Group produced in Élancourt, France.

Usage examples of "damocles".

Jewels Androclus and the Lion Horatius at the Bridge Julius Caesar The Sword of Damocles Damon and Pythias A Laconic Answer The Ungrateful Guest Alexander and Bucephalus Diogenes the Wise Man The Brave Three Hundred Socrates and his House The King and his Hawk Doctor Goldsmith The Kingdoms The Barmecide Feast The Endless Tale The Blind Men and the Elephant Maximilian and the Goose Boy The Inchcape Rock Whittington and his Cat Casabianca Antonio Canova Picciola Mignon CONCERNING THESE STORIES.

And let us, my brethren who have not our names in the Red Book, console ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions, and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now and then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly manner, and will be sure to drop one day or the other in the right place.

By biting the peg leg, Sunny had cut the Gordian Knot, for as the wooden pieces of fake peg leg fell to the floor of Damocles Dock, everyone could see a tattoo of an eye.

I remembered Earth, with its pettiness, its greed and vanity, its smugness, its pretensions, its pollutions and poisons, its teeming, crowded, miserable populations, and its endemic fears, fears such as that of not having enough energy to spin the wheels of an exorbitant and largely unnecessary technology, and the fear, fully warranted, of the falling of the sword of a nuclear Damocles.

This data is extremely sensitive but right now all you have is the Sword of Damocles hanging over a few of your minor diplomats.

That was the People's Navy's most sensitive post, the one naval command perpetually poised above the Committee of Public Safety's head like some megaton Sword of Damocles.

For all those years, since Richelieu had been appointed head of the Royal Council, the king's childlessness had hovered over the cardinal like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

I suppose one might argue under the circumstances that it would be courteous t' alert her t' the Sword of Damocles you've just suspended above her head.

It was like having a double-ended Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, and now, obviously, something about Terekhov bothered him deeply.

They lived under the sword of Damocles, knowing that it must fall.

This was a Sword of Damocles over both their heads, hanging by a thread.

For the first time, since the sword of Damocles had fallen, she was alone with her thoughts.