feral child

British  

noun

1. a neglected child who engages in lawless or anti-social behaviour

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Example Sentences

But, she acknowledged, perhaps that was a blessing: “Knowing me, being the feral child that I was, I would have had no restraint, and I would have been long dead.”

From New York Times • Dec. 22, 2023

He owns it, and he’s as angry as a feral child who’s soiled himself in the sandbox.

From Salon • Nov. 16, 2023

Such devices worked well in “Synonyms,” whose protagonist was a kind of overgrown, inattentive, feral child.

From Washington Post • May 3, 2022

Amma as a snarling feral child explained everything — and nothing — simultaneously.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2019

The play placed this feral child, literally raised by animals, in a psychiatric unit as doctors try to socialise him.

From The Guardian • Jul. 20, 2019