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• nine days' wonder
  nine days' wonder

  noun

  an event or thing that arouses considerable but short-lived interest or excitement.
• nine-days wonder
  nine-days wonder

  noun

  something that arouses great interest, but only for a short period

nine days' wonder

American  

noun

1. an event or thing that arouses considerable but short-lived interest or excitement.

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nine-days wonder British  

noun

1. something that arouses great interest, but only for a short period

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nine days' wonder Cultural  

1. Someone or something that is famous and celebrated for only a short time: “Last year the art critics praised Jonas as if he were a master, but he turned out to be a nine days' wonder.”

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Etymology

Origin of nine days' wonder

First recorded in 1585–95

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nine days' wonder nine-days wonder

Why did I do it? was the absorbing nine days' wonder; for, as was unanimously and justly observed, if it were a matter of propinquity alone, why did I not marry——?

From Boston Neighbours In Town and Out by Agnes Blake Poor

Now it became a nine days’ wonder that they should have been so foolish as to admit faithless Mignon into their club.

From Marjorie Dean High School Senior by Josephine Chase

The engagement had been a veritable nine days’ wonder.

From An Unknown Lover by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

As they had come, so they had gone, and the matter remained a nine days' wonder.

From The Storm Centre by Mary Noailles Murfree

But the disappearance of the Florentine letters was a nine days’ wonder.

From Witch Winnie's Mystery, or The Old Oak Cabinet The Story of a King's Daughter by Elizabeth W. (Elizabeth Williams) Champney

As it was, I turned up rather abruptly in a backwoods settlement where the “furriner” was more than a nine-days wonder.

From Our Southern Highlanders by Horace Kephart

To the public, the fascinating prima donna, who had rushed up from the horizon like a brilliant rocket, and disappeared as suddenly, was only a nine-days wonder.

From A Romance of the Republic by Lydia Maria Francis Child

"Only what I said,—that Major Stapylton may furnish the town with a nine-days wonder, vice Captain Duff Brown, forgotten."

From Barrington Volume II (of II) by Charles James Lever

He may make me a nine-days wonder in the newspapers and a town talk, and never reap the least advantage from it.

From The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly by Charles James Lever

A few days would bring them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its interest.

From J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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