Antonomasia

last update: 14 July 2020

Persons[edit]

"El Caudillo" for Francisco Franco
"El Jefe" for Rafael Trujillo
"Il Duce" for Benito Mussolini
"La Divina" for Maria Callas
"La Stupenda" for Joan Sutherland
"Man of Steel" or simply "Steel" for Joseph Stalin
"Mr. Soul" for Sam Cooke
"Old Blue Eyes" or "The Chairman of the Board" for Frank Sinatra
"Pelides" or "the son of Peleus" for Achilles[3]
"Son of Laertes" or "Man of Pain" for Odysseus
"The (Great) Bambino" for Babe Ruth
"The Bard" for William Shakespeare
"The Big Bopper" for Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr
"The Boss" for Bruce Springsteen
"The Commentator" for Averroes (so named for his commentaries on "The Philosopher" Aristotle's works)
"The Don" for Sir Donald Bradman
"The Fab Four" for The Beatles
"The First Lady of Song" for Ella Fitzgerald
"The Führer" for Adolf Hitler
"The Genius of the Carpathians" for Nicolae Ceausescu (note that this is only used ironically)
"The Gipper" or "The Great Communicator" for Ronald Reagan
"The Great Commoner" for Winston Churchill
"The Great Emancipator" for Abraham Lincoln
"The Great Silent One" for Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
"The Greatest" for Muhammad Ali
"The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" or "Soul Brother Number 1" or “The Godfather of Soul” for James Brown
"The High Priestess of Soul" for Nina Simone
"The Iron Chancellor" for Otto von Bismarck
"The Iron Lady" or "The Leaderene" for Margaret Thatcher
"The King of Pop" for Michael Jackson
"The King" for Elvis Presley
"The Little Corporal" for Napoleon[3]
"The Little Master" for Sachin Tendulkar
"The Mahatma" for Mohandas Gandhi
"The Master of Suspense" for Alfred Hitchcock
"The Prince of Darkness" for William Francis Galvin[4][5]
"The Queen of Pop" or "The Material Girl" for Madonna
"The Little Private" for Adolf Hitler before the Machtergreifung
"The Queen of Soul" for Aretha Franklin
"The Red Baron" for Manfred von Richthofen
"The Shah" for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
"The Stagirite" or "The Philosopher" for Aristotle[3]
"The Steel Butterfly" for Imelda Marcos
"The Tiger of Mysore" for Tipu Sultan

Fictional characters[edit]

"The Boy Who Lived" for Harry Potter
"The Dark Knight" or "The Caped Crusader" for Batman (also referred as "The Dynamic Duo" when paired with fictional sidekick, Robin)
"The Man of Steel" or the "Man of Tomorrow" for Superman
"The Mother of Dragons" for Daenerys Targaryen

Works of art[edit]

"The Scottish play" for Macbeth

Places[edit]

"Auld Reekie" for Edinburgh
"City of Dreams" for Mumbai
"The Southamerican Athens" for Bogotá
"La La Land" for Los Angeles
"The Big Apple" for New York City
"The City of Light" for Paris
"The Eternal City" or "Urbe" for Rome
"The Smoke" for London
"The Windy City" for Chicago
"The White City" for the World's Columbian Exposition
"The City of Hundred Gates" for ancient Thebes, Egypt
"The City of Palaces" for Mexico City
"The City of Kings" for Lima, Peru
"The Emerald City" for Land of Oz
"The Little Paris" for Paceco

Bernard Smith

Learning about the world, one fact at a time…

Antonomasia