English

Noun

Frankenstein's monster ‎(plural Frankenstein's monsters)

1. A thing that is cobbled together from parts of other things.
2. A creation that overpowers or slips out of the control of its creator, often proceeding to turn on its creator or harm others.

Quotations

• 1968 — Harold Joseph Laski, Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, p. 109

  They created a Frankenstein's monster which they did not imagine could grow out of their control.

• 1977 — Norman R. Augustine, Augustine's Laws, p. 68

  Somehow, the law does not always seem to serve those who created it, becoming at times a Frankenstein's monster of sorts.

• 1991 — Euan George Nisbet, Living Earth: A Short History of Life and Its Home, p. 84

  Like the English language, the eukaryote cell is a chimera, a Frankenstein's monster, assembled from bits and pieces of genetic information...

• 1995 — Roger Horrocks & Jo Campling, Male Myths and Icons: Masculinity in Popular Culture, p. 141

  He is like a Frankenstein's monster in reverse: everything that is pretty is combined together to produce a perfect androgyne.

Translations