wunderkind means A child prodigy; a wonderchild. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
WUNDERKIND — [Noun] A child prodigy, or a person who achieves remarkable professional success at a very young age. An unadapted borrowing from German Wunderkind, from Wunder ("wonder") + Kind ("child"). Unlike "prodigy," which centers on innate, extraordinary talent, or "upstart," which implies a brash challenge to authority, wunderkind denotes the specific, glittering moment where precocity crystallizes into public acclaim. It is the scent of rosin on the fingers of a twelve-year-old concert violinist; the startling warmth of a silicon wafer fresh from a teenager's lab; the weightless touch of a gallery cheque handed to an artist barely out of school—a brilliant, fleeting flare that the world mistakes for a permanent sun, a miracle already beginning to curdle with expectation.
noun
- A child prodigy; a wonderchild.
- A highly talented or gifted person, especially one who is successful at a young age.“Harriet Pappenheim, a psychotherapist at Park Avenue Relationship Consultants who wrote “For Richer or Poorer,” a 2006 book on money in marriage, said that the repercussions could be acute for Wall Street wunderkinds who define their identities through their job titles and the size of their bonuses.”