poster child
- noun
- /ˈpoʊstər tʃaɪld/
- And yet this is the poster child for the activist cause.
- become a poster child
My father is the poster child for narcissism or was.
- My father is the poster child for narcissism or was.
- So again, he is my, he is my poster child for science and discipline.
- That danger did not really exist during the Cold War, but now it is very real and an India Pakistan war would be the poster child for that.
- They have gone about this marketing campaign all wrong because the real poster child, the real model, the real face of the movement is you.
- I remember being you and I was a hard sell, but I should be the Tom Ferry poster child.
- NVIDIA is the poster child, you know, the prime beneficiary.
- And so, you know, everybody wants a poster child.
- That's, that's, that's the poster child for technology from the Second World War.
- And Speaker Pelosi, quite frankly, is kind of a poster child for just how, quite frankly, how corrupt this is.
- And it's like you, I was sort of the poster child for them, for the TV and health show and now everything.
Examples
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Several of them joked with me about how I had become a "poster child for redemption."
Blog text (4) -
She is their pride and joy, she is literally their poster child.
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And it's like you, I was sort of the poster child for them, for the TV and health show and now everything.
-
Being CEO just means you are the poster child of the company.
Blog text (4) -
In short, India appears to be a poster child for a potential demographic dividend.
Academic text (2010) -
Government, especially at the federal level, is the poster child for bad management and unintended consequences.
Blog text (11) -
She's the poster child for eating disorders.
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Bosnia was once the poster child for international reconstruction efforts.
Academic text (2009) -
Border security has become the poster child of big government programs that conservatives typically abhor.
Blog text (4) -
The youth group selected her as their poster child for climate action to inspire others.
Synonyms
A perfect example of a person or thing that shows a certain quality
A man people see as a perfect example of something
A leading person who represents a movement's ideas and goals
A woman who represents a quality, cause, or group
A person or thing that people use as an example of a quality
How Representative
Surface Forms
Morphology
poster + child
The literal meanings of 'poster' and 'child' (a child shown on a poster) provide a plausible metaphorical image that a learner could use to infer that the phrase denotes someone presented as an example or symbol of a cause. However, the conventionalized idiomatic sense 'a typical or prominent example' requires cultural/pragmatic knowledge and is not fully predictable from the parts alone, so it is only partially transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Poster child comes from charity and health campaigns where a child's picture was put on a poster to represent a cause. Because that child stood for the whole campaign, poster child now means 'a typical example' or someone who represents an idea.