enfant sauvage

(ɑ̃fɑ̃ sovaʒ)

n, pl enfants sauvages (ɑ̃fɑ̃ sovaʒ)

a person given to naive, undisciplined, or unpredictable behaviour, largely because of youth and inexperience

[C20: literally: wild child]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

References in periodicals archive

As the centrepiece of this salon, she adopts her very own enfant sauvage (Caroline Dhavernas), a child raised by pigs in a nearby village farm, whom she begins educating in human ways.

Grand mishaps: technology patron Daniel Langlois on the hits and misses of the digital wonder of The Baroness and the Pig

The novelty, however, goes only so far to enliven a drama that seems cobbled together from period-pic formulas--Jamesian Yank-in-Europe saga, enfant sauvage hook, protofeminist female protag, et al.--and provides few surprises en route.

The Baroness and the Pig

Ce 10 juin 1967, je reve deja de mes premieres vacances d'ete bien meritee a la campagne de mes origines paysannes oE je serai libre comme un enfant sauvage: Gambader avec l'ane de mon oncle,

Essai

In Bucheron, the self-confident, frequently naked enfant sauvage gave off star aura during a period when Canada's film culture suffered from a weird hang-up about the imagination, not to speak of sexual glamour.

Gilles Carle and La Vraie Nature de Bernadette saintly sinner, sinful saint: "You can't escape death alive, but you can try," Gilles Carle. (Cinema Canada)

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