Frankenstein
[frang-kuh n-stahyn]
- a person who creates a monster or a destructive agency that cannot be controlled or that brings about the creator's ruin.
- Also called Frankenstein monster. the monster or destructive agency itself.
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Origin of Frankenstein
First recorded in 1830–40; after a character in Mary Shelley's novel of the same name (1818)
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for frankenstein
Contemporary Examples
From Psycho to Frankenstein, watch scenes from the director's 10 favorite creepy classics.
The hybrid alliance is something of a Frankenstein monster where every arm imagines itself the brain.
When I think of Frankenstein, I have these visions of Robert De Niro in awful makeup.
He wrote the screenplay in collaboration with me and he plays Dr. Frankenstein.
You ever think how Dr. Frankenstein thought when Frankenstein ripped his first person in half?
Historical Examples
"Upon my word it seems to you what the Monster was to Frankenstein," said he.
The Opal SerpentFergus Hume
That Frankenstein is apt at all times to wild, primitive cruelty.
The Better Germany in War TimeHarold Picton
In calling upon this agency he acts the part of Frankenstein.
Fragments of science, V. 1-2John Tyndall
At last I perceived myself behind the logic of this Frankenstein.
Fantazius MallareBen Hecht
No, not as Mallare who had lain indifferent beside his Frankenstein.
Fantazius MallareBen Hecht
Frankenstein
- a person who creates something that brings about his ruin
- Also called: Frankenstein's monster a thing that destroys its creator
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Word Origin
C19: after Baron Frankenstein, who created a destructive monster from parts of corpses in the novel by Mary Shelley (1818)
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for frankenstein
Frankenstein
allusive use dates to 1838, from Baron Frankenstein (German, "free stone"), character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus." Commonly used, mistakenly, as the proper name of the monster he created, and thus franken- extended 1990s as a prefix to mean "non-natural."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Frankenstein
Note
Frequently the subject of horror films, the monster is usually pictured with an oversized square brow, metal bolts in his neck and forehead, and greenish skin. People often mistakenly refer to the monster, rather than to his creator, as “Frankenstein.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.