protégé
Americannoun
-
protégés
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of protégé
First recorded in 1780–90; from French, noun use of past participle of protéger “to protect” from Latin prōtegere; see protect
Explanation
A protégé is a person who receives special protection and promotion from someone more established in a field. If your boss introduces you as his newest protégé, you're off to a good start in your career. Essentially, a protégé is a teacher’s pet, someone who is given special status or favors. Often, the word is used for someone who has special standout talent and is taken up as an upcoming star or powerhouse. The word’s original associations, however, have nothing to do with talent and everything to do with how a person treats the protégé — the source of the word means “protection.”
Vocabulary lists containing protege
In Cold Blood
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National Spelling Bee '14: Prelims Round 2
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100 SAT words Beginning with "P"
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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.
See Examples For:
Attention on Ingle's latest protégé was more than just hype.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
Southern postmasters thus continued to withhold antislavery periodicals, with the tacit approval of Jackson protégé Kendall.
From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2026
Deborah famously tried to muzzle Ava a few times, only to back off when she realized that by hurting her protégé, she was wounding herself.
From Salon ● May 29, 2026
Another is Jacki Adams, a hugely successful model of the era and engaging presence here, whose romance with another group member, Von Mierers protégé John Andreadis, tore the group apart.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
Almost immediately, the Captain saw something in the skinny, hungry lad from Gary—some spark of raw intelligence, perhaps—and took him as a protégé.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
Except for Mr. Ehrlich and the saxophonist and composer Tim Berne, Hemphill had few protégés.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
Does Druckenmiller have any other protégés out there that we should be paying attention to?
From Barron's ● Feb. 2, 2026
The way Chua’s clerkship placement system operated was to move around law protégés like chess pieces that accrued the most power to the Chua system.
From Slate ● Jul. 29, 2024
Indeed, there are now three Sarkozy protégés in government: Ms Vautrin, Ms Dati and Mr Darmanin.
From BBC ● Jan. 12, 2024
“This is not a question for the microscope,” one of his protégés wrote—a sly barb directed at Bateson, Morgan, and de Vries.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
