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Glite Dictionary
🌊 A river in Italy 🚫 A point of no return
Rubicon

Rubicon

8 9.9
A river in northern Italy that Julius Caesar crossed in 49 BC
  • proper noun
  • /ˈruːbɪkən/
translation icon : Rubicón
  • I crossed my own Rubicon at that point.
  • crossing the Rubicon

Examples

  • Julius Caesar famously crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC, signaling the start of a civil war.

  • We crossed the Rubicon.

    Black Gold (2011)

  • Do not cross the Rubicon.

    The Holdovers (2023)

  • But "crossing the Rubicon" is still a useful image.

    Blog text (34)

  • For I have crossed the Rubicon.

    1776 (1972)

  • The question, "What if Caesar had not crossed the Rubicon?"

    Academic text (1993)

  • I think what they're trying to say, Elizabeth, is that we've all just crossed the Rubicon.

    Dracula II: Ascension (2003)

  • Napoleon at Austerlitz, Hannibal at the Alps, Caesar at the Rubicon.

    Academic text (2007)

  • The general's decision to advance his troops over the Rubicon marked a turning point in history.

  • After years of indecision, she felt she had finally crossed the Rubicon in her personal life.

Idioms

to cross the Rubicon
  • Informal
2 8.5

To take a decisive action that you cannot change later

Surface Forms

Rubicon main

Etymology

Rubicon is the name of a river in northern Italy. Its Latin name comes from ruber 'red', probably because the river sometimes looked red, and Julius Caesar's crossing of it in 49 BC made the river famous as the start of a civil war.