monstre sacré

Definitions

A striking, unusual public figure; an eccentric celebrity.

Equivalents

Examples

“[…] Picasso changed, or was changed, from a capital painter, known as such a painter should be known, into a monstre sacré, a holy cow surrounded with an enormous, self-perpetuating, inescapable, and generally irrelevant notoriety.”

“Ken Russell's BBC film (with Vivian Pickles) and Kenneth MacMillan's Isadora ballet portrayed her as a grotesque monstre sacre.”

“They call⟳ him the last⟳ monstre sacré (an expression coined by Jean Cocteau to describe⟳ Sarah Bernhardt), adding that “attacking Depardieu is attacking art.[…]””

CEFR level