11 April 2018

enfant terrible

[ahn-fahn te-ree-bluh]

noun, plural enfants terribles [ahn-fahn te-ree-bluh]. French.

1. an incorrigible child, as one whose behavior is embarrassing.
2. an outrageously outspoken or bold person who says and does indiscreet or irresponsible things.
3. a person whose work, thought, or lifestyle is so unconventional or avant-garde as to appear revolutionary or shocking.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for enfant terrible

Contemporary Examples

But what happens when the enfant terrible has enfants of her own?
Sarah Silverman on Getting Old and Having Kids
Rebecca Dana
April 19, 2010

At 39, he is no longer young enough to be an enfant terrible, but people still peg him as a kid too cool to grow up.
Spike Jonze’s Wild World
Caryn James
October 6, 2009

Historical Examples

On the literary side of things I am, I fear, a Philistine, or enfant terrible.
Rustic Sounds
Francis Darwin

She was an enfant terrible, whose friends no one knew, who passed for very wise, and whose lines of intrigue were inscrutable.
The Secret of the Night
Gaston Leroux

The argumentative child is scarcely less trying than the enfant terrible.
Collections and Recollections
George William Erskine Russell

The youth laughed, but for the sake of ‘making a trade’ set down his basket and took the ‘ enfant terrible.’
Prudy Keeping House
Sophie May

Of him and of his recruits in South Africa, Churchill spoke with the awful frankness of the enfant terrible.
Real Soldiers of Fortune
Richard Harding Davis

Wedekind, who to the mtier of the artist joins that of the enfant terrible, strains in this play every nerve to shock.
Modernities
Horace Barnett Samuel

The enfant terrible is making papa and mamma alike ridiculous by showing us mamma’s lover, who is lurking behind the screen.
John Leech, His Life and Work, Vol. II (of II)
William Powell Frith

He has always been rather an unknown quantity, and he is regarded by the powers as an enfant terrible.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898
Various

Anagram

infernal better
internal bereft
elf inn batterer
ten rift enabler

Today’s quote

A riot is the language of the unheard.

– Martin Luther King

On this day

11 April 1979 – Ugandan President Idi Amin (Dada) is ousted when Tanzanian rebels sieze power. Amin flees to Libya and eventually settles in Saudi Arabia. Amin had been responsible for ethnic cleansing, killing an estimated 80,000 to 300,000 people.

11 April 1981 – Riots in Brixton, South London commence following the arrest of a black man. On a day known as ‘Black Saturday’, up to 5,000 youths confront police and run riot through the streets, looting, throwing petrol bombs, burning hundreds of cars and buildings, and injuring hundreds of people. Police arrested 82 people.