bête-noire

noun, plural bêtes noires

[beyt nwahrz; French bet nwar] .

a person or thing especially disliked or dreaded; bane; bugbear.

Origin:
1835–45; < French: literally, black beast

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins

World English Dictionary

bête noire (bɛt nwar)

—n , pl bêtes noires
	a person or thing that one particularly dislikes or dreads

[literally: black beast]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Relevant Questions

What Is Bête Noire?

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Bête-noire is always a great word to know.

So is zedonk. Does it mean:

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

bete noire

"an insufferable person," 1844, from Fr. bête noire "personal aversion," as an adj., "stupid, foolish;" lit. "the black beast."

American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

bête noire [(bet nwahr)]

Something or someone a person views with particular dislike: “The new candidate for governor is the bête noire of all the liberals in the state.” From French, meaning “black beast.”

Matching Quote

"By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!"

-Albert Einstein

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