bête noire

The most serious liberal opposition, though, came from the LGBT community, where Hagel was a longtime bête noire.

I asked the conductor if he had been at the battle; he burst out laughing like a philosopher, as he was, and said "Pas si bete."

Merimee says of George Sand that he has known her "maigre comme un clou et noire comme une taupe."

The weather, being practically the bete noire of our existence, came in for a good deal of abuse.

It had been our bête noire from the time five dollars and fifty cents ransomed it at Shasta.

Those two strangers, those doctors who arrived at the Tte-Noire last night, have been making experiments already.