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Aladdin’s Window

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To finish Aladdin’s Window—i.e. to attempt to complete something begun by a great genius, but left imperfect. The genius of the lamp built a palace with twenty-four windows, all but one being set in frames of precious stones; the last was left for the sultan to finish; but after exhausting his treasures, the sultan was obliged to abandon the task as hopeless.

Tait’s second part of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel is an Aladdin’s Window.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Ajax
Ajax
Akbar
Akuan
Akuman
Alabama
Alabaster
Aladdin
Aladdin’s Lamp
Aladdin’s Ring
Aladdin’s Window
Aladine
Alako
Alans
Alarcon
Alarm
Alarum Bell
Alasnam
Alasnam’s Mirror
Alastor
Alauda