Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
1
9.9
- noun
- Literature
:
Cuatro Jinetes del Apocalipsis
- It's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Dijrer.
Examples
-
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were sent to initiate hell on earth, and it's happening tomorrow.
-
They chose the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for a reason.
-
Like the Four Horsemen... of the Apocalypse.
-
It's the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
-
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding, man.
-
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse need to find the boy as well so they can get the ball rolling on ending the world as we know it.
Blog text (22) -
Everyone's gonna die and one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will have watched Bill's Manor.
-
That same theme was used by an Argentinian novelist whose widely read book about the First World War was made into the Valentino film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Blog text (22) -
Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—come to claim his soul.
Fiction book (1993) -
In many artworks, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are depicted as harbingers of doom and destruction.
Synonyms
6
9.9
Four riders who represent conquest, war, famine, and disease at the end of the world
Surface Forms
Morphology
four + Horsemen + of + the + Apocalypse
If a learner knows 'four' (number), 'horsemen' (riders) and 'Apocalypse' (end-of-world/revelatory catastrophe), they can reasonably infer this refers to four riders associated with catastrophic or apocalyptic events. However, the phrase encodes specific biblical/cultural symbolism (conquest, war, famine, death) that is not predictable from the words alone and requires background knowledge, so the transparency is partial.
Etymology
The phrase Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse comes from the Bible's Book of Revelation, where four horsemen on different colored horses ride out: one brings power, one brings war, one brings hunger, and one brings death. So people now use it to mean clear signs of great danger or 'disaster'.