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Procrustes
Character in Greek mythology / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Damastes" redirects here. For the spider genus, see Damastes (spider). For the ancient Greek historian and geographer, see Damastes of Sigeum.
For the Larry Niven story, see Procrustes (short story). For the statistical analysis technique, see Procrustes analysis.
In Greek mythology, Procrustes (/proʊˈkrʌstiːz/; Greek: Προκρούστης Prokroustes, "the stretcher [who hammers out the metal]"), also known as Prokoptas, Damastes (Δαμαστής, "subduer") or Polypemon, was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed.
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The word Procrustean is thus used by analogy to describe, for example, situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, while completely disregarding obvious harm that results from the effort.