freak of nature

English

Etymology

Derived from Latin lūsus nātūrae (literally “sport of nature”), originally used to refer to fossils or abnormalities such as two-headed snakes.

Noun

freak of nature (plural freaks of nature)

1. A monstrosity; a malformation; an abnormal organism.

   Synonyms: aberration, abnormality, anomaly, deformity, freak, monster, mutant, mutation, oddity, rarity

2. In the variety-show business, a person or an animal on exhibition as showing some strange deviation from nature, such as a bearded woman or an albino.
   • 1876 July, Henry James, Jr., “The American”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXXVIII, number CCXXV, Boston, Mass.: H[enry] O[scar] Houghton and Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, chapter IV, page 17, column 2:

     He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another café, where more newspapers were taken and his post-prandial demi-tasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences.

Translations

monstrosity

• Finnish: luonnonoikku (fi)
• Polish: wybryk natury m

a person or an animal in the variety-show business

• Finnish: friikki (fi)
• Polish: wybryk natury m

See also

• force of nature

References

• “freak of nature”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Further reading

• Lusus Naturae, Folklore, and Display in the Nineteenth Century