prodigy

From Middle English prodige (“portent”), from Latin prōdigium (“omen, portent, prophetic sign”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɒdɪd͡ʒi/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɑdɪd͡ʒi/
• Hyphenation: prod‧i‧gy

prodigy (plural prodigies)

1. An extraordinary occurrence or creature; an anomaly, especially a monster; a freak. [from 16th c.]
2. An amazing or marvellous thing; a wonder. [from 17th c.]
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXXII, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 153:

     He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him.

3. A wonderful example of something. [from 17th c.]
4. An extremely talented person, especially a child. [from 17th c.]
5. (archaic) An extraordinary thing seen as an omen; a portent. [from 15th c.]
   • 1717, Homer, [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book XII”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume III, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC:

     These on the farther bank now stood and gazed, / By Heaven alarm’d, by prodigies amazed: / A signal omen stopp’d the passing host, / Their martial fury in their wonder lost.

   • 1727, William Warburton, “Part I”, in A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as Related by Historians. […], London: […] Thomas Corbett, […], →OCLC, page 1:

     Prodigies and Portents have infected the beſt VVritings of Antiquity; and have ſo blotted and deformed our modern Annals, that (vvith greater Juſtice than Polybius has obſerv'd it, of the former) they may be rather called Tragedies than History.

   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 87:

     John Foxe believed that special prodigies had heralded the Reformation.

• (extremely talented person): wunderkind, girl wonder, girl-genius, boy-genius, boy wonder, child prodigy.

• (extremely talented person): idiot savant, savant

• precocious
• prodigal
• child prodigy
• prodigy house

• “prodigy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “prodigy”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “prodigy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• prodigy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia