Meaning of freak | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Someone or something that is markedly unusual or unpredictable.
2. A man, particularly a bold, strong, vigorous man.
3. A hippie.
4. A fellow; a petulant young man.
   Scotland, UK, dialectal
5. A drug addict.
6. A person who is extremely abnormal in appearance, social behavior, sexual orientation, gender identity, or business practices; an oddball, a unique person, originally in a displeasing or alienating way.
   derogatory, slang
7. A person whose physique has grown far beyond the normal limits of muscular development; often a bodybuilder weighing more than 260 pounds (120 kg).
8. An enthusiast, or person who has an obsession with, or extreme knowledge of, something.
9. A very sexually perverse individual.
   endearing, informal, sometimes
10. A wild dance.
11. A sudden change of mind.
    dated
12. A streak of colour; variegation.
    dated
13. Euphemistic form of fuck (“smallest amount of concern or consideration”).
    euphemistic, form-of

Equivalents

Examples

“The two-headed calf was a freak.”

“freak of nature, freak of the weather, freak of the imagination”

“[H]aving a dinner-party at his rooms to entertain some friends from London, nothing would satisfy Mr. Foker but painting Mr. Buck’s door vermilion, in which freak he was caught by the proctors …”

“And I may answer with another question. Why is a two-headed calf? And my own answer to this is that it is a freak.”

“There may be good points about a freak reel, but because it is a freak it will stand little show of even a fair try-out”

“It is a freak that people talk about when they see it. Not everyone calls it by the right name, and few people know how it gets to be what it is. This freak is hail.”

“When long-haired, outlandishly dressed, drug-using hippies pilgrimaged to Haight-Ashbury in the early 1960s, they were quickly dubbed freaks; the pejorative appellation was both obvious and intended. It was not long before freak had become practically synonymous with hippie. It seems, however, that with the acceptance of long hair, the appearance and popularity of some rather bizarre fashions, and the emphasis placed upon "doing one's own thing," freak is no longer burdened with all of its former derogatory associations. Instead […] the word is beginning to acquire a quality which is favorable, glamorous, and somehow even admirable.”

“Smith and Sturges [June 1969] note in their study of the San Francisco drug scene that freak means "anyone addicted to drugs."”

“Gentrification often starts with the artists, revolutionaries, freaks, transfolks, and queers (what I would call my people) moving into poor neighborhoods inhabited by people of color.”

“Bob's a real video-game freak. He owns every games console of the last ten years.”

“Anyone […] who seems "hung up" on some idea, activity or interactional disposition, might be called a "freak."”

“Presently […] college students […] use freak to denote any kind of enthusiast.”

“She's a freak in the sheets!”

“Get your freak on.”

“And then, with heart more hard than stone, He pick'd my marrow from the bone. To vex me more, he took a freak To slit my tongue and make me speak: But, that which wonderful appears, I speak to eyes, and not to ears.”

“It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew older—and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence—to have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home;”

“So why am I grieving over someone who doesn't even give a freak about me? These vindictive ideas flowed through my head. A part of me wanted to carve my name into his little Saturn leather seats, but I remembered they weren't leather.”

“They hear you, not out in the car, but when you practically say it to their face, they could make things hard for you, just to get back at you. You never know.” “Hey, Flor, not for nothin', but I don't give a freak about them guys or[…]”

“Because I've seen the vampires up there, and they don't give a freak about anyone or anything. Tell me you are different." "I am trying to be. The urges are hard to overcome, but, I assure you, you're safe with me.”

CEFR level