"Allusion definition" is searched fifty-five thousand times a month in the United States, by students who have been told a passage "contains an allusion" and need to know what to look for, and by readers who have hit one and want the source. An allusion is a short indirect reference that the writer trusts you to recognise. The difficulty is not the definition but the recognising, which is why this page is mostly a sorted list: eighty allusions that turn up in school texts, news and conversation, each with its source and what it means, plus how to spot one, how to write about its effect, and how it differs from the things it is confused with. The printable has the list and practice questions on two pages.
Download the allusion sheet (PDF) (the definition, the 80 allusions by source with meanings, the three-step method for writing about one, and twelve practice questions with answers; two pages, free).
The definition
An allusion is a brief, indirect reference to a person, place, event, story, work or idea outside the text, which the writer leaves unexplained because the reader is expected to know it. It is pronounced "a-LOO-zhun" and comes from the Latin alludere, to play with. (Do not confuse it with an illusion, a false impression, or with elusion, escaping.)
Three things make a reference an allusion: it is indirect (the source is hinted, not named or quoted in full), it is unexplained (the writer does not stop to tell the story), and it relies on shared knowledge (the Bible, Greek and Roman myths, Shakespeare, famous history, and now films and the internet). "He has the Midas touch" assumes you know that King Midas turned everything he touched to gold, and that the writer means the person makes money from everything.
Eighty common allusions, by source
Biblical
| Allusion | The source | What it means now |
|---|---|---|
| a Good Samaritan | the parable of the traveller helped by a stranger from a despised group | someone who helps a stranger in trouble |
| David and Goliath | the shepherd boy who killed the giant with a sling | a small underdog against a huge opponent |
| the prodigal son | the son who wasted his inheritance and was welcomed home | someone who returns after going astray, and is forgiven |
| a Judas | the disciple who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver | a traitor, especially to a friend |
| the writing on the wall | the hand that wrote Belshazzar's doom at his feast (Daniel) | a clear sign that the end is coming |
| forbidden fruit | Eden's tree | something wanted because it is not allowed |
| a Garden of Eden | the first paradise | an unspoilt, perfect place |
| the patience of Job | Job, who kept faith through every loss | enormous patience under suffering |
| the wisdom of Solomon | the king who proposed cutting the disputed baby in two | wise judgement in a hard dispute |
| Cain and Abel | the first murder, brother of brother | deadly rivalry between brothers |
| a flood of biblical proportions, Noah's ark | the great flood | a disaster, or a refuge from one |
| Armageddon | the final battle in Revelation | a catastrophic final conflict |
| a Philistine | the enemies of ancient Israel | a person with no interest in culture |
| a Jezebel | the wicked queen | a scheming, immoral woman |
| Methuselah | the man who lived 969 years | anyone or anything extremely old |
| a Samson | the strong man whose hair held his strength | a very strong man, or one undone by a weakness |
| a Lazarus | the man Jesus raised from the dead | something revived against all odds |
| a doubting Thomas | the disciple who would not believe without touching the wounds | a sceptic who needs proof |
| the eleventh hour | the parable of the labourers hired late in the day | the last possible moment |
| a scapegoat | the goat sent into the wilderness carrying the people's sins | someone blamed for others' faults |
| Sodom and Gomorrah | the cities destroyed for their wickedness | a place of vice |
| a land of milk and honey | the Promised Land | a place of plenty |
Mythological (Greek and Roman)
| Allusion | The source | What it means now |
|---|---|---|
| Achilles' heel | the one spot where the hero could be wounded | a single fatal weakness |
| Pandora's box | the jar Pandora opened, releasing every evil | a source of troubles that cannot be undone |
| the Midas touch | the king whose touch turned everything to gold | the ability to make money from anything |
| a Trojan horse | the wooden horse that hid Greek soldiers | a gift or offer that hides an attack |
| a Herculean task | the twelve labours of Hercules | an enormously difficult job |
| a Sisyphean task | Sisyphus, forced to roll a boulder uphill forever | endless, pointless labour |
| an odyssey | Odysseus's ten-year journey home | a long, eventful journey |
| a siren song | the singers who lured sailors onto the rocks | a dangerously tempting appeal |
| to fly too close to the sun, an Icarus | the boy whose wax wings melted | ambition that brings a fall |
| a narcissist | Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection | someone obsessed with themselves |
| a nemesis | the goddess of retribution | an unbeatable rival or a deserved downfall |
| a Cassandra | the prophetess fated never to be believed | someone whose true warnings are ignored |
| between Scylla and Charybdis | the monster and the whirlpool on either side of a strait | between two dangers |
| Promethean | Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods for humans and was punished for it | boldly creative, defiant of authority |
| a Cupid | the god of desire with his arrows | a matchmaker |
| an Adonis | the beautiful youth loved by Aphrodite | a very handsome man |
| a muse | the nine goddesses of the arts | a source of inspiration |
| the Elysian Fields, Elysium | the heroes' afterlife | paradise |
| a labyrinth | the maze that held the Minotaur | a bewildering maze or problem |
| a titan, titanic | the giants who ruled before the gods | enormous |
| a chimera | the fire-breathing monster of mixed parts | an impossible fantasy |
| a Pyrrhic victory | King Pyrrhus, whose win cost him his army (history, Greek) | a victory that costs more than it is worth |
| Mercurial, jovial, saturnine, martial | the gods Mercury, Jove (Jupiter), Saturn, Mars | changeable; cheerful; gloomy; warlike |
Literary
| Allusion | The source | What it means now |
|---|---|---|
| a Scrooge | Dickens, A Christmas Carol | a miser |
| a Romeo | Shakespeare | a romantic young lover |
| Big Brother | Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four | an all-seeing surveillance state |
| Orwellian | Orwell | sinister state control of truth and language |
| a Catch-22 | Heller's novel | a no-win rule that traps you either way |
| Jekyll and Hyde | Stevenson | a person with two opposite natures |
| a Frankenstein | Mary Shelley (the scientist, though it names the monster now) | a creation that destroys its creator |
| tilting at windmills, quixotic | Cervantes, Don Quixote | fighting imaginary enemies; idealistic and impractical |
| a Pollyanna | Eleanor Porter's novel | a relentlessly optimistic person |
| a Peter Pan | J. M. Barrie | an adult who refuses to grow up |
| Lilliputian | Swift, Gulliver's Travels | tiny; or petty |
| Kafkaesque | Kafka's novels | nightmarishly bureaucratic and absurd |
| Dickensian | Dickens | grim Victorian poverty, or caricatured characters |
| a Cheshire Cat grin | Carroll, Alice in Wonderland | a wide, knowing smile |
| down the rabbit hole | Alice | into a strange, absorbing situation |
| a Shylock | Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice | a ruthless moneylender (a term now recognised as an antisemitic stereotype) |
| "Et tu, Brute?" | Shakespeare, Julius Caesar | betrayal by a trusted friend |
| a Lady Macbeth | Shakespeare | a ruthlessly ambitious woman |
| a Sherlock | Conan Doyle | a brilliant detective (often sarcastic: "no kidding, Sherlock") |
| Humpty Dumpty, all the king's horses | the nursery rhyme | something broken beyond repair |
| a Babbitt, a Gatsby, a Walter Mitty | Lewis, Fitzgerald, Thurber | a conformist; a self-made dreamer; a daydreamer |
Historical
| Allusion | The source | What it means now |
|---|---|---|
| to meet your Waterloo | Napoleon's final defeat, 1815 | a final, crushing defeat |
| to cross the Rubicon | Caesar's river crossing that began civil war, 49 BC | a decision with no going back |
| a Benedict Arnold | the American general who defected to the British | a traitor (US) |
| draconian | Draco, the Athenian lawmaker whose code punished everything with death | extremely harsh (laws, rules) |
| Machiavellian | Machiavelli's The Prince | cunning and unscrupulous in gaining power |
| a Napoleon complex | the emperor's supposed short stature | aggression to compensate for being small |
| Nero fiddling while Rome burned | the emperor during the fire of 64 AD | a leader ignoring a crisis |
| "Let them eat cake" | attributed (wrongly) to Marie Antoinette | contempt for the poor |
| Spartan | Sparta's austere warrior culture | plain, tough, without comfort |
| a Houdini | the escape artist | an improbable escape |
| an Einstein | the physicist | a genius (often sarcastic) |
| a Pearl Harbor | the 1941 surprise attack | a devastating surprise attack |
| Watergate, and every "-gate" | the 1972 scandal that brought down Nixon | a political scandal and cover-up |
| a Munich | the 1938 agreement that gave Hitler the Sudetenland | giving in to an aggressor, appeasement |
| a Titanic | the unsinkable ship that sank, 1912 | a huge, overconfident failure |
| Rome wasn't built in a day | the city's long rise | great things take time |
| a Sputnik moment | the 1957 Soviet satellite that shocked the US | a shock that spurs a nation to act |
| a Marshall Plan | the US reconstruction of Europe after 1945 | a huge rebuilding programme |
Pop culture
| Allusion | The source | What it means now |
|---|---|---|
| kryptonite | Superman's one weakness | the thing that disables someone |
| a Darth Vader | Star Wars | a villain who turned to the dark side |
| the red pill, the Matrix | The Matrix (1999) | waking up to an uncomfortable truth |
| a Hogwarts letter, a Muggle | Harry Potter | the call to a magical life; an ordinary person |
| a Scooby-Doo ending | the cartoon's unmaskings | a villain revealed as an ordinary person |
| a Mickey Mouse operation | Disney | something trivial or amateurish |
| a Barbie | the doll | glamorous and (unfairly) assumed empty |
| Groundhog Day | the 1993 film | the same day repeating endlessly |
How to spot an allusion
- A capitalised name that is not a character in the text: Icarus, Scrooge, Waterloo, Judas.
- A phrase that sounds older or grander than its surroundings: "a land of milk and honey", "four score".
- A word made from a name: Herculean, Orwellian, draconian, quixotic, Machiavellian, jovial.
- A comparison that assumes a story: "she opened a Pandora's box", "the project was a Trojan horse".
- A title or first line that echoes another work: Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (Burns), East of Eden (Genesis), Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Macbeth), Huxley's Brave New World (The Tempest), Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (Donne).
When you find one, name the source, say what it carries, and say what it does in the text. "The title East of Eden alludes to Genesis, where Cain is exiled east of Eden after killing Abel; Steinbeck's novel is about two sets of brothers, and the allusion tells the reader from the cover that one brother will destroy the other."
Why writers use them
Compression (a whole story in one word), tone (biblical allusions sound weighty, mythological ones grand, pop-culture ones light), connection (the text joins a tradition), flattery (the reader who recognises it feels clever), and indirection (the writer can call a politician a Nero without saying "he is ignoring the crisis"). The risk is that allusions date and divide: a reader who does not know the source gets nothing, which is why the classical and biblical ones have lasted and why most pop-culture ones do not.
Allusion, reference, analogy, plagiarism
| Direct? | Explained? | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allusion | no | no | "the Gettysburg of the campaign" |
| Reference or citation | yes | names the source | "as Lincoln said at Gettysburg in 1863, ..." |
| Quotation | yes | quotes it | "Four score and seven years ago..." in quotation marks |
| Analogy | spells out the comparison | yes | "This speech is to the campaign what the Gettysburg Address was to the Civil War: short, late and decisive" |
| Plagiarism | copies without credit and pretends it is original | no | none; it is not a device but a theft |
An allusion is honest because it expects to be recognised; plagiarism hopes not to be.
Where it sits in school
Allusion is named in US grade 5 and 6 standards (Common Core RL.4.4 for mythological allusions in word meanings, L.5.5 and L.6.5 for figurative language), tested in grade 8 and high-school literature and on AP English Literature and Language; it is a GCSE English Literature and Language term in England, a Year 7 to 10 English term in Australia, and a CBSE Class 9 and 10 literary device. The mark scheme wants the effect, not the spotting.
Practice: twelve questions
Identify the allusion and its source, then say what it means.
- "The new phone is the company's Achilles' heel."
- "He's no Einstein, but he works hard."
- "Opening the old files was a Pandora's box."
- "She had the patience of Job with that class."
- "The merger turned out to be a Trojan horse."
- "Signing the contract meant crossing the Rubicon."
- "Stop being such a Scrooge and buy the tickets."
- "The CCTV on every corner feels like Big Brother."
- "Chasing that record is his Sisyphean task."
- "That spreadsheet is my kryptonite."
- "The senator's fall was a real Icarus story."
- "The headline read: 'Rome wasn't built in a day, but the stadium was supposed to be.'"
Answers: 1) Greek myth; the one weak spot. 2) The physicist; a genius (ironic). 3) Greek myth; troubles released that cannot be contained. 4) The Bible; endless patience under trial. 5) Greek myth (the Trojan War); a gift hiding an attack. 6) Roman history (Caesar); a decision with no way back. 7) Dickens; a miser. 8) Orwell; a surveillance state. 9) Greek myth; endless, pointless labour. 10) Superman; the thing that defeats you. 11) Greek myth; ambition that ends in a fall. 12) The proverb about Rome; great things take time, used ironically.
Download the allusion sheet (PDF)
Where to get help
A 1-on-1 online English class for grades 6 to 12, GCSE and A level, AP Literature and Language, the Australian years and CBSE: literary devices taught from real passages on the shared screen, the three-step method for writing about an effect, and the essays marked to the rubric. The recording and notes after every class, the same tutor every week, US$10 to $13 an hour. The English literature page has the courses; the free 30-minute first class is a real lesson, usually on the homework the student brings.
Questions parents ask
1What is an allusion?
2What is an example of an allusion?
3What is the difference between an allusion and a reference?
4Why do writers use allusions?
5How do you write about an allusion in an essay?
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