{"id":264,"date":"2010-10-17T07:13:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T07:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/?p=264"},"modified":"2024-01-15T20:43:10","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T20:43:10","slug":"black-sheep-of-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/black-sheep-of-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Idiom: The Black Sheep of the Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

black sheep of the family<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fig. <\/em>A worthless or disreputable family member.<\/p>\n

The “black sheep” is a member of a social group or family who is regarded as a disgrace and an embarrassment to the rest of the group. The phrase became popular during the 18th century and is associated with the proverb, “There’s a black sheep in every flock.”<\/p>\n

It is believed that the phrase derived from the fact that the fleeces of black sheep were not as valuable as those of the white sheep. \u00a0While the wool of a white sheep could be dyed many different colors, the black fleece was a lot more limited and, for this reason, people preferred to have only white sheep in their flocks.<\/p>\n

Examples:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

John is the black sheep of the family<\/span>. \u00a0He is currently serving 5 years in jail for stealing a car.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Despite our best efforts to teach Julia how to behave, she is just the black sheep of the family<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Picture<\/a><\/p>\n

For more idioms see: idiomatic phrases in English<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking for proofreading services? \u00a0Our online proofreaders are affordable and available 24\/7.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

black sheep of the family Fig. A worthless or disreputable family member. The “black sheep” is a member of a social group or family who is regarded as a disgrace and an embarrassment to the rest of the group. The phrase became popular during the 18th century and is associated with the proverb, “There’s a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9645,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/9645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}