Medean

It's the opposite of what Flannery calls the Medean way of life, named after the ruthless and ultimately genetically suicidal character in Greek myth who, after her husband leaves her for another, kills their own two children, her rival and her rival's father in bloody, take-no-prisoners revenge.

The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Alanna Mitchell 2011

Just as Richard Dawkins famously said we are the first species to be able to rebel against our selfish genes and choose to be kind, we are the first species that can rebel against the Medean rhythm of life.

Johann Hari: The Next Crash Will Be Ecological -- and Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts Johann Hari 2010

The versions of the murder of Apsyrtos, Medea's half-brother fathered by Aietes; nymph mother, as well as his age at the time of his death, are as myriad as the versions of the Medean myth: in Euripides' version, Medea herself clearly accepts culpability for the act and Apsyrtos was presumably an adult.

Thoughts on Medea 2006

But she would have been frightened by any proposition as to Medean vengeance.

The American Senator 2004

And then she was old enough to be his mother, though by some Medean tricks known to such women, she was able to postpone — not the ravages of age — but the manifestation of them to the eyes of the world.

Phineas Redux 2004

He seemed born anew, and virtue, more potent than Medean alchemy, endued him with health and strength.

The Last Man 2003

And if any one comes that will lay their hands upon them; he saith immediately, eat, drink, smoke and be merry to your hearts content; but whatsoever you do, touch not my books; for that's as a Medean Law and an inviolable statute in my Chamber; as it doth, to the same purpose, stand written thus before my Chamber of Books:

The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and the Second Part, The Confession of the New Married Couple A. Marsh

She wanted the quiet to reconcile this new, this terrible, this throat-throbbing sweetness with the Medean fury which had flung her, a shuddering, choking mass upon that rooming-house floor.

Star-Dust Fannie Hurst 1928

Swiss traveller hails with Medean delight when he comes upon it on the mountain-side.

Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland 1881

She clenched her fist and shook it at an imaginary Lushington in space, and for a moment her face wore a look of Medean menace.

Fair Margaret A Portrait Horace T. [Illustrator] Carpenter 1881