Sleeping Beauty

en-proper noun

Sleeping Beauty (plural Sleeping Beauties)

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In the genetics sense, so called because the transposon was brought back to activity from a long evolutionary sleep.

A fairy tale originally titled La Belle au bois dormant by Charles Perrault.


Cinderella

/ˌsɪndəˈɹɛlə/

From cinder + -ella, as in little cinder girl. Compare French Cendrillon.

A popular fairy tale embodying a classic folk tale myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward.


Rumpelstiltskin

Tom Tit Tot

from English Fairy Tales, collected & edited by Joseph Jacobs, 1884

A fairy tale about a dwarf who saves the miller’s daughter by spinning straw into gold in exchange for her first-born child, but is foiled when she guesses his name.


Little Red Riding Hood

A fairy tale about a young girl who walks through the forest to visit her grandmother and encounters the Big Bad Wolf (or another vicious wolf, or werewolf in archaic versions).

Mainsak a manlalakbeng makamalutung pandung


Snow White

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Calque of German Schneewittchen (literally “white as snow”).

calque

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

A fairy tale, the best-known version of Schneewittchen collected by the Brothers Grimm, in which a beautiful young girl is targeted by a jealous queen and tended by dwarfs.


Rapunzel

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Borrowed from German Rapunzel, the name of several varieties of lettuce.

A German fairy tale about a girl imprisoned in a tower who lets down her long hair for a rescuer to climb.

[…] as they loll in pairs or trios, looking down from the windows like Rapunzels and carpet-knights, while they eat bruised apricots, tomorrow is always on their lips as honey to come.

1966, Hal Porter, The Paper Chase, Angus and Robertson, page 90:

I spot Sleeping Beauty in a thorn forest. Two of them, only they are more like Rapunzels who’ve fallen from their tower.

2011, Carole Nelson Douglas, Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta, Forge, →ISBN, page 172:

He keeps all three of us locked up like Rapunzels.

2020, Lauri Robinson, The Flapper’s Baby Scandal, Harlequin, →ISBN:

The fictional girl who is the protagonist and title character of the fairy tale.


Bluebeard

Calque of French Barbe-Bleue (literally “blue beard”).

A famous fairy tale written by Charles Perrault in 1697 about a violent nobleman who has the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of his current wife to avoid the same fate.


Pinocchio

/pɪˈnəʊ.kɪ.əʊ/

Borrowed from Italian Pinocchio, possibly from the rare Tuscan form pinocchio (“pine nut”) or constructed from pino (“pine tree, pine wood”), also similar to Pino, diminutive of Giuseppe (“Joseph”), as is Geppetto (the maker of Pinocchio).


Peter Pan

From the eponymous character in the novel Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.

"A Peter Pan if ever there was one. Hopeless at school. Incapable either of competing or co-operating."

A man who acts like a child and does not accept the responsibilities of adulthood.


Pied Piper

Short for Pied Piper of Hamelin, from pied and piper.

A folk tale or legend, dating back to the Middle Ages, about a rat-catcher in variegated attire, hired by the German town of Hamelin, who is not paid for his services and retaliates by luring away the local children by playing a flute.


Tom Thumb

→ French: Tom Pouce

→ Dutch: tompoes
→ English: tompouce

→ Limburgish: tompoeske

A fairy-tale character who is the size of a person's thumb; the protagonist and hero of the fairy tale The History of Tom Thumb.


beauty and the beast

From the traditional fairy tale. See Beauty and the Beast at Wikipedia.

(music) An aesthetic in heavy metal, etc. that contrasts "angelic" female vocals with male growls or aggressive singing.


Thumbelina

/ˌθʌmbəˈliːnə/

From thumb, as a calque of Danish Tommelise, the original name created by Hans Christian Andersen.

ثُومْبِلِينَا

a thumb-sized girl, the main character of a fairy tale


Hansel and Gretel

A German fairy tale, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812, about the siblings named Hansel and Gretel who are threatened by a cannibalistic witch who lives in a house made of cake and bread.

糖果屋 (tángguǒ wū, literally “candy house”)


Puss in Boots

A 17th-century French literary fairy tale about a cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for his penniless and low-born master.

الْقِطّ ذُو الْحِذَاء

al-qiṭṭ ḏū l-ḥiḏāʔ


Goldilocks

Apparently from goldilocks, equivalent to goldy + locks (“tuft of hair, curl”).

Tennis players are the Goldilocks characters of sports.
The balls are too big, or too small. The courts are too fast, or too slow. It’s too cold, or too hot, or too sticky, or too sunny.

2022 September 6, Matthew Futterman, “The Great U.S. Open Ball Debate of 2022”, in The New York Times:

The protagonist of a traditional fairy tale. She is a golden-haired young girl who inquisitively enters the house of three bears and tries their three bowls of porridge, three chairs, and three beds, in each case finding only one that suits her.