sword of Damocles


noun

Origin of sword of Damocles

First recorded in 1810–20

British Dictionary definitions for sword of damocles

Sword of Damocles

noun

a closely impending disaster

Word Origin for Sword of Damocles

see Damocles

Idioms and Phrases with sword of damocles

sword of Damocles

Also, Damocles' sword. Impending disaster, as in The likelihood of lay-offs has been a sword of Damocles over the department for months. This expression alludes to the legend of Damocles, a servile courtier to King Dionysius I of Syracuse. The king, weary of Damocles' obsequious flattery, invited him to a banquet and seated him under a sword hung by a single hair, so as to point out to him the precariousness of his position. The idiom was first recorded in 1747. The same story gave rise to the expression hang by a thread.