enfant terrible
See also: Enfant terrible
English
editEtymology
editUnadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (literally “terrible child”).
Pronunciation
editNoun
editenfant terrible (plural enfants terribles)
- An unconventional badly-behaved person who causes embarrassment or shock to others.
- 2010, Peter Coleman, Quadrant, March 2010, No. 464 (Volume LIV, Number 3), Quadrant Magazine Limited, page 86:
- He was soon the talk of the town, the enfant terrible of our little world.
- 2010, Peter Coleman, Quadrant, March 2010, No. 464 (Volume LIV, Number 3), Quadrant Magazine Limited, page 86:
- An unusually successful person who is strikingly unorthodox, innovative, or avant-garde.
- 1918, Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams[1]:
- Diplomatists have no right to complain of mere lies; it is their own fault, if, educated as they are, the lies deceive them; but they complain bitterly of traps. Palmerston was believed to lay traps. He was the enfant terrible of the British Government.
- (obsolete, literally) A wild child.
- 1876, Louisa May Alcott, Rose in Bloom[3]:
- “A perfect cherub” she pronounced it the first day, but an “enfant terrible” before the week was over, for the young hero rioted by day, howled by night, ravaged the house from top to bottom, and kept his guardians in a series of panics by his hairbreadth escapes.
Synonyms
editTranslations
editunconventional badly-behaved person
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See also
editCatalan
editEtymology
editUnadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (“terrible child”).
Noun
editenfant terrible m (plural enfants terribles)
Dutch
editEtymology
editUnadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (“terrible child”).
Pronunciation
editNoun
editenfant terrible n (plural enfants terribles)
French
editEtymology
editLiterally, “terrible child”, i.e. “badly-behaved child”.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editenfant terrible m (plural enfants terribles)
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see enfant, terrible.
- enfant terrible, wild child
Descendants
edit- → Catalan: enfant terrible
- → Dutch: enfant terrible
- → English: enfant terrible
- → German: Enfant terrible
- → Russian: анфа́н-терри́бль (anfán-terríblʹ)
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- Catalan terms derived from French
- Catalan lemmas
- Catalan nouns
- Catalan countable nouns
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- Dutch terms borrowed from French
- Dutch unadapted borrowings from French
- Dutch terms derived from French
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- French terms with IPA pronunciation
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- French nouns
- French countable nouns
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- French masculine nouns