bete noire

1. 1.

   a detested person

   “he is an anathema to me”

   Synonymsanathema

   Broaderunpleasant person

Questions about bete noire

What does bete noire mean?

bete noire means "a detested person".

What is another word for bete noire?

Close synonyms include anathema. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is bete noire a common word?

bete noire is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.