stormy petrel
Americannoun
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the British storm petrel, Hydrobates pelagicus, of the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean.
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a person who causes or likes trouble or strife.
noun
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another name for storm petrel
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a person who brings or portends trouble
Etymology
Origin of stormy petrel
First recorded in 1770–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But Leon Smith, the captain, was determined to have him here, his stormy petrel capable of all sorts of heroics in the past, a good luck charm now, and a loud one.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 29, 2015
Pierre Boulez used to be the stormy petrel of contemporary music.
From Time Magazine Archive
Jim Carey had been a stormy petrel in the labor movement for years.
From Time Magazine Archive
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, 58, hawk-nosed, "gimlet-eyed" stormy petrel of the U. S. Marine Corps; of an abdominal ailment; in Philadelphia.
From Time Magazine Archive
The wild notion had seized him that the Princess Roshinara, a stormy petrel of political affairs just then, might have drifted to Rai Bareilly by some evil chance.
From The Red Year A Story of the Indian Mutiny by Louis Tracy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
