A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg
bunny boiler
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: A person who is dangerously obsessive and vengeful, especially when spurned.
ETYMOLOGY:
After a character in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction who boils a pet rabbit belonging to the family of a married man who has an affair with her but then spurns her. Earliest documented use: 1990.
NOTES:
As the playwright William Congreve said in 1697: “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” In Fatal Attraction, that fury came with a pot of boiling water.
While the term is vivid shorthand for obsessive behavior, it often reflects a double standard: strong emotional reactions in women are pathologized, while similar behavior in men may be cast as tragic or intense. [e.g., Trump and Musk]