the.com/black sheep
The relative everyone compares themselves to feel better.
means A member of a family or group who stands out from the rest, usually by being seen as disreputable, unconventional, or a disappointment to expectations.
from Comes from literal sheep farming — most flocks are white, and an occasional black-wooled sheep stood out visibly among them. Beyond just looking different, its wool couldn't be dyed as easily and was considered worth less, so shepherds saw the dark sheep as a literal liability in the flock. By the 1700s the phrase had wandered off the farm entirely, grazing instead on family reunions, where it's used for the relative whose life choices nobody quite endorses.
- origin
- black wool was once considered worthless, unsaleable
- genetics
- recessive gene, not rebellion, causes the color
- irony
- family calls them different while treating them identically
- usage shift
- now often worn as a badge of pride