Jekyll and Hyde
1
8.2
- noun
- /ˈdʒɛkəl ənd haɪd/
- Informal
:
personalidad de Jekyll y Hyde
- Growing up, I lived with a Jekyll and Hyde mother who was nurturing on good days but would turn harsh without warning.
- Jekyll and Hyde personality
Because this dual life, this very confused Jekyll and Hyde, frankly, that's the life many people going through narcissistic abuse go through.
- Because this dual life, this very confused Jekyll and Hyde, frankly, that's the life many people going through narcissistic abuse go through.
Examples
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He is often described as a Jekyll and Hyde character, showing a compassionate side at times but also a cruel streak.
-
He's a Jekyll and Hyde, a tough, brilliant intelligence man, totally down-to-earth and infinitely skeptical, suspicious, and cynical, with an obsession about the Soviet Union.
Fiction book (1993) -
For myself, I feel like Jekyll and Hyde on this subject.
Blog text (15) -
We have the ability to be Jekyll and Hyde.
Blog text (31) -
He was Jekyll and Hyde for this age.
Fiction book (1995) -
I grew up with a Jekyll and Hyde father who was wonderful most of the time, but when he'd get mad he'd explode in a shouting rage.
-
My boss has a Jekyll and Hyde personality; he can be kind one moment and completely unreasonable the next.
Synonyms
23
8.9
A person who seems good in public but hides a darker side
A person who shows two different sides, for example kind and cruel
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is an eponymous literary allusion to Stevenson’s characters; the proper names 'Jekyll' and 'Hyde' give no compositional clue to the dichotomous personality meaning. A B1 learner who knows the words 'Jekyll', 'and', 'Hyde' but lacks cultural/literary knowledge would not be able to derive the idiomatic sense, so it is opaque.
Etymology
Jekyll and Hyde comes from a famous story where one man had two very different sides: the polite Dr. Jekyll and the violent Mr. Hyde. So, calling someone a Jekyll and Hyde means they can be both 'good' and 'evil' at different times.