PANDORA'S BOX • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pandora's box

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/pændˈɔrəz bɑks/ Listen

Pandora's box

noun

(Greek mythology) a box that Zeus gave to Pandora with instructions that she not open it; she gave in to her curiosity and opened it; all the miseries and evils flew out to afflict mankind.

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Etymology of 'Pandora's box'

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"Pandora's box" Quotes from Famous Books

... 1850 had loosed from its Pandora's box another fomenter of trouble, in the idea of leaving to the people of the Territories the settlement of whether their incoming States should be slave or free,—the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" as it was called. The nation had accepted that ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... recognizable by the cavernous hollow in the centre of the forehead where once had blazed the giant's single eye. The tub of Diogenes, Medea's caldron, and Psyche's vase of beauty were placed one within another. Pandora's box, without the lid, stood next, containing nothing but the girdle of Venus, which had been carelessly flung into it. A bundle of birch-rods which had been used by Shenstone's schoolmistress were tied up with the Countess ...

— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Salemina particularly.) He also alludes to Tories and Rapparees, Rousseau and Thomas Paine and Owen Roe O'Neill, but I have entirely forgotten their connection with the subject. Francesca and I are thoroughly enjoying ourselves, as only those people can who never take notes, and never try, when Pandora's box is opened in their neighbourhood, to seize the heterogeneous contents and put them back properly, with ...

— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

Words linked to "Pandora's box" : Greek mythology, chest