"bête noire" meaning in English

See bête noire in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /bɛt ˈnwɑː/ [Received-Pronunciation], /beɪt-/ [Received-Pronunciation], /bɛt ˈnwɑɹ/ [General-American] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bête noire.wav Forms: bêtes noires [plural]
Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ) Etymology: Unadapted borrowing from French bête noire (“(figurative) intolerable person”, literally “black beast”). Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*negʷ-}}, {{ubor|en|fr|bête noire|lit=black beast|t=(figurative) intolerable person}} Unadapted borrowing from French bête noire (“(figurative) intolerable person”, literally “black beast”) Head templates: {{en-noun|bêtes noires|nolinkhead=1}} bête noire (plural bêtes noires)
  1. Someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked; the bane of someone's existence; an object of aversion; an anathema. Synonyms: bugbear Related terms: enemy Translations (someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked): piztia beltza (Basque), bèstia negra [feminine] (Catalan), 深惡痛絕 (Chinese Mandarin), 深恶痛绝 (shēn wù tòng jué) [idiomatic] (Chinese Mandarin), banemand (Danish), zwarte beest [feminine] (Dutch), boeman [masculine] (Dutch), inhokki (Finnish), bête noire [feminine] (French), besta negra [feminine] (Galician), כבשה שחורה (Kivsá Shxorá) [feminine, masculine] (Hebrew), ard-ghwoaieid [feminine] (Manx), banemann [masculine] (Norwegian Bokmål), موی دماغ (Persian), ادم مزاحم و غیر قابل تحمل (Persian), czarny lud [animate, masculine] (Polish), besta negra [feminine] (Portuguese), жу́пел (žúpel) [masculine] (Russian), bestia negra [feminine] (Spanish), avsky [common-gender] (Swedish), fasa [common-gender] (Swedish), vildsvin [neuter] (Swedish), can düşmanı [singular] (Turkish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSONL data for bête noire meaning in English (11.3kB)

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          "text": "[A] petticoated politician was [Napoleon] Bonaparte's bête noire, or antipathy, […]",
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          "ref": "1836 September, “Art. VIII.—1. A Letter to a Noble Lord on the Causes which have Produced the Present Reaction; with Remarks on Lord John Russell’s Letter to the Electors of the City of London. By Walker Skirrow, Esq. London. 1841 … [book review]”, in John Taylor Coleridge, editor, The Quarterly Review, volume LXVIII, number CXXXVI, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 504",
          "text": "No reader can be ignorant that for many years past the bêtes noires of the Whigs and Radicals were what they delighted to call ‘political parsons.’ If the clergyman was a magistrate, he was libelled as a political parson; if he presided at a vestry that levied a church-rate, he was persecuted as a political parson.",
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          "text": "Unruly dogs and cows are the bêtes noires of her morning walks,—wasps and earwigs haunt her retirement,—and ghosts and burglaries mar her midnight peace!",
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          "ref": "1997 November 10, Bob Metcalfe, “TRUSTe Uses Consents and Disclosures to Protect Privacy on the Internet”, in Sandy Reed, editor, InfoWorld, volume 19, number 45, San Mateo, Calif.: InfoWorld Publishing Co., International Data Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 159, column 1",
          "text": "Life is easy for people who have just one bête noire and a trusty silver bullet. There are, for example, people whose bête noire is censorship and whose silver bullet is the First Amendment. […] And there are many whose life is all about this week's subject—privacy—as if nothing else matters. Problem is that privacy conflicts with other important rights, such as freedom of speech.",
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          "ref": "2006, Andy McDermott, chapter 9, in Final Destination: Death of the Senses, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Black Flame, page 288",
          "text": "The CD was leaning against the side of the right-hand shelf unit, so to get a firm grip with a fingertip, he was going to have to use his left hand. It went against every instinct he had about getting greasy fingermarks on CDs, a personal bête noire, but on this occasion he was just going to have to put up with it.",
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          "text": "The government knows that the liberal broadsheet press is shot through with anti-Putin, borderline Russophobic prejudice. Indeed, many commentators still blame Russia for Brexit. And so, at its lowest ebb, [Boris] Johnson's wretched government has decided to play to the gallery, and generate some plastic animosity towards the bête noire of the liberal elite.",
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        "Someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked; the bane of someone's existence; an object of aversion; an anathema."
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          "avoid"
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          "disliked",
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          "bane of someone's existence",
          "bane of someone's existence"
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          "word": "enemy"
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        {
          "code": "eu",
          "lang": "Basque",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "word": "piztia beltza"
        },
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
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        },
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "word": "深惡痛絕"
        },
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          "roman": "shēn wù tòng jué",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "idiomatic"
          ],
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        },
        {
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
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        },
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          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "bête noire"
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
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          "word": "besta negra"
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          "code": "he",
          "lang": "Hebrew",
          "roman": "Kivsá Shxorá",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine",
            "masculine"
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          "word": "כבשה שחורה"
        },
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          "code": "gv",
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          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "ard-ghwoaieid"
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          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
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          "word": "banemann"
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        {
          "code": "fa",
          "lang": "Persian",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "word": "موی دماغ"
        },
        {
          "code": "fa",
          "lang": "Persian",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "word": "ادم مزاحم و غیر قابل تحمل"
        },
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          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "animate",
            "masculine"
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          "word": "czarny lud"
        },
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          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "besta negra"
        },
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          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "žúpel",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "жу́пел"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "bestia negra"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "avsky"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "fasa"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "vildsvin"
        },
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          "code": "tr",
          "lang": "Turkish",
          "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
          "tags": [
            "singular"
          ],
          "word": "can düşmanı"
        }
      ]
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      "ipa": "/beɪt-/",
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  "word": "bête noire"
}
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          "text": "[A] petticoated politician was [Napoleon] Bonaparte's bête noire, or antipathy, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1836 September, “Art. VIII.—1. A Letter to a Noble Lord on the Causes which have Produced the Present Reaction; with Remarks on Lord John Russell’s Letter to the Electors of the City of London. By Walker Skirrow, Esq. London. 1841 … [book review]”, in John Taylor Coleridge, editor, The Quarterly Review, volume LXVIII, number CXXXVI, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 504",
          "text": "No reader can be ignorant that for many years past the bêtes noires of the Whigs and Radicals were what they delighted to call ‘political parsons.’ If the clergyman was a magistrate, he was libelled as a political parson; if he presided at a vestry that levied a church-rate, he was persecuted as a political parson.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "text": "Unruly dogs and cows are the bêtes noires of her morning walks,—wasps and earwigs haunt her retirement,—and ghosts and burglaries mar her midnight peace!",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1997 November 10, Bob Metcalfe, “TRUSTe Uses Consents and Disclosures to Protect Privacy on the Internet”, in Sandy Reed, editor, InfoWorld, volume 19, number 45, San Mateo, Calif.: InfoWorld Publishing Co., International Data Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 159, column 1",
          "text": "Life is easy for people who have just one bête noire and a trusty silver bullet. There are, for example, people whose bête noire is censorship and whose silver bullet is the First Amendment. […] And there are many whose life is all about this week's subject—privacy—as if nothing else matters. Problem is that privacy conflicts with other important rights, such as freedom of speech.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, Andy McDermott, chapter 9, in Final Destination: Death of the Senses, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire: Black Flame, page 288",
          "text": "The CD was leaning against the side of the right-hand shelf unit, so to get a firm grip with a fingertip, he was going to have to use his left hand. It went against every instinct he had about getting greasy fingermarks on CDs, a personal bête noire, but on this occasion he was just going to have to put up with it.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022 January 24, Tim Black, “The UK Must Stop Meddling in Ukraine: Boris Johnson’s Sabre-rattling is Both Desperate and Dangerous”, in Tom Slater, editor, Spiked, London: Spiked Ltd., archived from the original on 2023-09-25",
          "text": "The government knows that the liberal broadsheet press is shot through with anti-Putin, borderline Russophobic prejudice. Indeed, many commentators still blame Russia for Brexit. And so, at its lowest ebb, [Boris] Johnson's wretched government has decided to play to the gallery, and generate some plastic animosity towards the bête noire of the liberal elite.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "Someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked; the bane of someone's existence; an object of aversion; an anathema."
      ],
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          "unbearable"
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          "avoid"
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          "disliked",
          "dislike#Verb"
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          "bane of someone's existence",
          "bane of someone's existence"
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          "object",
          "object#Noun"
        ],
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          "aversion",
          "aversion"
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          "anathema"
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          "word": "bugbear"
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      "ipa": "/beɪt-/",
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    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bête noire.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3f/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-b%C3%AAte_noire.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-b%C3%AAte_noire.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3f/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-b%C3%AAte_noire.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-b%C3%AAte_noire.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "eu",
      "lang": "Basque",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "word": "piztia beltza"
    },
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "bèstia negra"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "word": "深惡痛絕"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "shēn wù tòng jué",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "word": "深恶痛绝"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "word": "banemand"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "zwarte beest"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "boeman"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "word": "inhokki"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "bête noire"
    },
    {
      "code": "gl",
      "lang": "Galician",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "besta negra"
    },
    {
      "code": "he",
      "lang": "Hebrew",
      "roman": "Kivsá Shxorá",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "כבשה שחורה"
    },
    {
      "code": "gv",
      "lang": "Manx",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "ard-ghwoaieid"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "banemann"
    },
    {
      "code": "fa",
      "lang": "Persian",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "word": "موی دماغ"
    },
    {
      "code": "fa",
      "lang": "Persian",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "word": "ادم مزاحم و غیر قابل تحمل"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "animate",
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "czarny lud"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "besta negra"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "žúpel",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "жу́пел"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "bestia negra"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "avsky"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "fasa"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "vildsvin"
    },
    {
      "code": "tr",
      "lang": "Turkish",
      "sense": "someone or something that is unbearable and so particularly avoided or disliked",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ],
      "word": "can düşmanı"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bête noire"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-07-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-06-20 using wiktextract (e79c026 and b863ecc). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.