Dictionary

enfant terrible en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French enfant terrible (literally “terrible child”).

Meanings

1. An unconventional badly-behaved person who causes embarrassment or shock to others.
   • 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
2. An unusually successful person who is strikingly unorthodox, innovative, or avant-garde.
   • 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. 1918, Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams:
   • The clip shows the 67-year-old enfant terrible of French letters in pyjamas lying on a bed next to a woman in a nightie, smoking and laughing. 2023 March 28, Philip Oltermann, “Michel Houellebecq sex film to be released despite attempt to stop it”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
3. (literally, obsolete) A wild child.
   • “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. 1876, Louisa May Alcott, Rose in Bloom:

Forms

Relateds

bad boy

Synonyms

terrible infant

Translations (10)

es niño terrible (unconventional badly-behaved person) · ru несно́сный челове́к (unconventional badly-behaved person) · de Enfant terrible (unconventional badly-behaved person) · fr enfant terrible (unconventional badly-behaved person) · cmn 淘氣鬼 /淘气鬼 (unconventional badly-behaved person) · cmn 頑童 /顽童 (unconventional badly-behaved person) · nl enfant terrible (unconventional badly-behaved person) · ru анфа́н-терри́бль (unconventional badly-behaved person) · ja アンファンテリブル (unconventional badly-behaved person) · fi kauhukakara (unconventional badly-behaved person)