nine-day wonder
- noun
- /naɪn-deɪ ˈwʌndər/
- Archaic
:
moda pasajera
- The latest social media trend was just a nine-day wonder before everyone moved on to the next big thing.
Examples
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The viral video became a nine-day wonder, captivating audiences for a week before being forgotten.
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Sure, the rare disaster sparks a nine-day wonder amid the disaster junkies, except that it rarely seems to last nine days, and just occasionally, a financial journalist will make a foray into shipping, usually in the wake of a spectacular bankruptcy or the emergence of terrible trade figures.
Blog text (25) -
Yes, or I could be laying out a hell of a lot for a nine day wonder.
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And on Thursday they fly to America, to see if they were more than nine-day wonders.
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His brief affair with her turned out to be nothing more than a nine-day wonder that faded quickly.
Synonyms
53
3.5
A popular style or activity for a short time
35
4.2
A short time when many people like the same thing
27
4.5
A short news event that gets a lot of public attention
4
7.2
A person or thing that has a short time of success and then people forget them
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
nine-day + wonder
The phrase is compositionally analyzable: 'nine-day' signals a short duration and 'wonder' denotes something admired, so a learner who knows the parts can infer 'something admired for a short time.' However, the conventionalized nuance that it is quickly forgotten (the idiomatic judgmental sense) is slightly pragmatic and not fully predictable without exposure, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Nine-day wonder probably comes from an old image of a small show or event that makes people excited for only nine days. One popular story says such a trick would fill a town with talk for nine days and then be forgotten, so the phrase means 'briefly popular'.