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Bête noire

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(pronounced bet-nwahr)  noun

Definition

a person or thing that is particularly disliked or loathed, and therefore avoided; something greatly feared; bogeyman.

Main Example

• Understandably, from here on out to the Nov. 6 presidential election, the Democrats will tout the killing of Osama bin Laden as one of President Obama's top accomplishments in the area of national security. After all, ever since the attacks of September 11, bin Laden had been this country's most wanted terrorist--America's number one bête noire--and the decision to send a squadron of CIA-led Navy SEALS deep into Pakistan, in the dead of night, with the intent to either capture or kill Osama bin Laden was uncommonly bold and risky for any U.S. president.

Workplace Examples

• These week-long annual operations reviews of our division continue to be the bête noire of my boss, the general manager, because the company's top brass subjects him to all sorts of tough, probing questions.
• In college, I had to take a course in statistics, which I really hated. For some reason, math has always been my bête noire.

Other Examples

• a colleague confiding in you: "My sister, Sharon, cut off all contact with me over ten years ago for reasons unbeknownst to me--around the time our mother passed away--and hasn't spoken to me since, despite my numerous overtures. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that for some reason, I am Sharon's bête noire."
• the American coal industry's bête noire: the Sierra Club, which has been applying tremendous pressure on electric utilities to switch to fuels that are less hostile to the environment
• in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan following last year's tsunami, nuclear power becoming even more of a bête noire for Greenpeace and some of the other leading environmental organizations
• Anybody who resists convention or champions major reforms usually becomes the bête noire of those who want to preserve the status quo, such as in the case of the lead character played by Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 classic "Mr. Smith goes to Washington."

© 2014 V.J. Singal
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