Frankenstein's monster

English[edit]

In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein assembled a monster from human corpses; it eventually escaped his control.

Frankenstein 's monster (plural Frankenstein's monsters)

A thing that is cobbled together from parts of other things.
- 1991, Euan George Nisbet, Living Earth: A Short History of Life and Its Home, page 84:
  Like the English language, the eukaryote cell is a chimera, a Frankenstein's monster, assembled from bits and pieces of genetic information...
- 1995, Roger Horrocks, Jo Campling, Male Myths and Icons: Masculinity in Popular Culture, page 141:
  He is like a Frankenstein's monster in reverse: everything that is pretty is combined together to produce a perfect androgyne.
A creation that overpowers or slips out of the control of its creator, often proceeding to turn on its creator or harm others.
- 1968, Harold Joseph Laski, Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, page 109:
  They created a Frankenstein's monster which they did not imagine could grow out of their control.
- 1977, Norman R. Augustine, Augustine's Laws, page 68:
  Somehow, the law does not always seem to serve those who created it, becoming at times a Frankenstein's monster of sorts.

Translations