People become famous for a gamut of reasons—unforgettable appearances, feats of heroism, good (and bad) reputations. Some simply lived iconic lives that cannot be copied.

So, it's no surprise that historically famous people who have lived extraordinary lives have become the source for many metaphors. Merriam Webster defines a metaphor as "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in swimming in paperwork)."

And although they're no longer with us, their memories continue to live on in daily conversations. On Reddit, people shared their favorite metaphors inspired by historically famous people. These are 15 of the most intriguing.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

"'That guy can get out of anything he’s a real Houdini'." - rakfink

"He’s become a Benedict Arnold (a traitor to his country)." - Bo-Jacks-Son

"Boycott was one of the earliest examples of this - named for Charles Boycott, a British land agent in Ireland in the 1880’s." - F*CKYOURCOUCHREDDIT

"She’s a regular Annie Oakley with her rifle (a good shot)." - Bo-Jacks-Son

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"Yeah, she thinks she’s Marilyn Monroe (a sexy woman)." - Bo-Jacks-Son

"He’s a regular Evel Knievel (a daredevil)." - Bo-Jacks-Son

"John Hancock - Associated with your signature. Yes, just for people who don't know, on the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock's signature is the largest and very central, and everybody else's is smaller and somewhat squeezed in. He signed it first, or at least early, before it became clear how much room people would have. So sometimes a signature is referred to as a John Hancock--like 'Put your John Hancock right there!'" - GabbyWic, Effective_Pear4760

"I think Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are often mentioned (in the US anyway) when you're trying to say someone's a great dancer." - Effective_Pear4760

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"Keeping up with the Joneses. 'There was an actual Jones family who built a 7,690-square-foot mansion in Rhinebeck, New York, a summer vacation spot for well-heeled, wealthy families from New York City. Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones commissioned the formidable brick-and-slate structure in 1853...'." - BabySlothDrivingFast

"A Doubting Thomas is named after the apostle who doubted Jesus." - ThimbleBluff

"Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus. His name has become a synonym for reviled traitor." - NonspecificGravity

"Einstein has become a synonym for genius, often used ironically. When your roommate burns popcorn in the microwave, you might yell 'Hey, Einstein!'" - NonspecificGravity

Albert Einstein's name is often used as a metaphor.Image via Wikimedia Commons

"This is an old one but any time a woman was feeling herself, my grandma (who was born in 1912) used to say, 'she thinks she’s Queen of Sheba'. The Queen of Sheba is based on a scriptural character (both Jewish and Christian, also Islamic) character who visited King Solomon because she heard he was so amazing she had to meet him and test his knowledge. She brought tons of gold, spices, etc. They established trade routes and other political alliances. She is known as a very powerful and wealthy ruler. The phrase your grandmother (and many other women) used is an insult, as if the subject was overly glitzy, even fake. I think that's sad, because he Queen of Sheba was the Bible's most powerful women. I'd be happy to be referenced as a Queen of Sheba!" - Optimal_Management_7, pioneercynthia

"Some of our American gangsters fit here…Bonnie and Clyde to describe any modern crime duo." - Optimal_Title3359

"Calling someone a quizling. Named after Vidkun Quisling who was a Norwegian Minister and Nazi collaborator during WW2. It's come to mean a citizen or politician of an occupied country who collaborates with an enemy occupying force; it may also be used more generally as a synonym for traitor or collaborator." - cleanrato

Throughout her prolific and distinguished career, biologist Lynn Margulis made several groundbreaking contributions to science that we take for granted as common knowledge today. For example, she championed James E. Lovelock’s “Gaia concept,” which posited that the Earth self-regulates to maintain conditions for life.

But by far, her most notable theory was symbiogenesis. While it was first written off as “strange” and “aesthetically pleasing” but “not compelling,” it would ultimately prevail, and completely rewrite how we viewed the origin of life itself.

In the late 1960s, Margulis wrote a paper titled "On the Origin of Mitosing Cells," that was quite avant-garde. In it, she proposed a theory: that life evolved through organisms merging together to become inseparable.

In essence, cooperation is the driver of life, not competition and domination. This directly went against Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” principle that was considered gospel in scientific circles. Margulis’ paper was rejected by fifteen journals before getting accepted into the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Time would be on Margulis’ side, however. By the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, research proved that the two major building blocks of plants and animals, chloroplasts and mitochondria were at one time independent bacteria. This solidified the fact that on a biological level, connection trumps autonomy for longevity. And now that fact is written in textbooks, with no real story of the adversity it overcame to get there.

While it is customary for most new scientific theories to be met with criticism, especially those that completely shift the current narrative, many have noted that sexism played a key part in Margulis’ initial lack of acceptance. On more than one occasion, she herself had hinted that women were seen as mothers and wives first, and scientists second. She recalled that while married to fellow scientist Carl Sagan that “Carl would finish his sentence, unperturbed” while she was expected to “handle all the duties of a 1950s housewife, from washing dishes to paying the household bills.”

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And yet, Margulis would have other ideas that were controversial that had nothing to do with her gender. Most famously, she did not believe that AIDS was caused by HIV, and instead believed it was cause by a syphilis-causing type of bacteria, despite there already being decades of research proving otherwise. That view was seen as an........

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