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swords of Damocles

swords of Damocles is the plural of sword of Damocles.

Meaning of sword of Damocles

Noun

sword of Damocles (plural swords of Damocles)

  1. A thing or situation which causes a prolonged state of impending doom or misfortune.
    • Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.1961 December 10, John F. Kennedy, quotee, “‘Sword of Damocles’ Popular These Days”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, page 22

Questions about swords of Damocles

What is swords of Damocles the plural of?
Swords of Damocles is the plural of sword of Damocles.

Words near swords of Damocles in the dictionary

  1. swordpoint
  2. swordpoints
  3. swordproof
  4. swords
  5. swords and sorcery
  6. swords of Damocles
  7. swords of state
  8. swords to ploughshares
  9. swords to plowshares
  10. swordslength
  11. swordslengths

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swords of Damocles (page history and authors); sword of Damocles (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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