Word of the Day

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Wunderkind

[VUN-də-kihnd]Part of speech: noun

Origin: german, late 19th century

• A person who achieves great success when relatively young.
• A child prodigy.

Examples of Wunderkind in a sentence

• She earned the nickname Wunderkind when she sold her startup for $5 million at age 23.
• The piano teacher always hoped that she might come across a wunderkind in her lessons.

About Wunderkind

All proud parents watching their children learn new skills might be tempted to use the word wunderkind. But you would be called rude if you pointed out that wunderkind should be reserved for a child prodigy who is producing work at the level of an adult. If their pride and joy grows up to be an unusually successful twentysomething they can use wunderkind again.

Did you Know?

Some things just sound cooler in a foreign language. You could call that talented kid a child prodigy, but wunderkind is so much more fun. The direct translation from German is wonder child, and don't forget to pronounce the "V" at the beginning of wunderkind.

Comments

[pfrye.livejournal.com]

Illya Kuryakin had been described as a wunderkind by many people throughout his life. He had always excelled at whatever task had been put before him, be it basic education, languages, spy craft, or advanced physics. He had always worked and studied hard and with the benefit of a prodigious memory he had succeeded. He didn't like the term wunderkind, he didn't like that he was singled out because of his innate talent. One term that he did take a private bit of pleasure out of was when Napoleon called him a "smart Russian".