Word-Built World: bunny boiler

A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg

bunny boiler

PRONUNCIATION:

(BUH-nee boy-luhr) 

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]

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