enfant terrible
See also: Enfant terrible
English edit
Etymology edit
Unadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (literally “terrible child”).
Noun edit
enfant 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 edit
Translations edit
unconventional badly-behaved person
|
See also edit
Catalan edit
Etymology edit
Unadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (“terrible child”).
Noun edit
enfant terrible m (plural enfants terribles)
Dutch edit
Etymology edit
Unadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (“terrible child”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
enfant terrible n (plural enfants terribles)
French edit
Etymology edit
Literally, “terrible child”, i.e. “badly-behaved child”.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
enfant 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)