Idiom
Benjamin Button
Meaning
To seemingly age in reverse; to appear younger, either through changes in appearance or one's personality and lifestyle.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He looks like he is pulling a Benjamin Button.”
“You are pulling a Benjamin Button in that new photograph.”
“After changing his diet and style, he looks so much younger that his friends joke he is pulling a Benjamin Button.”
“My grandmother is pulling a Benjamin Button because she has more energy and modern hobbies now than she did twenty years ago.”
“Since he retired and started traveling, he seems to be pulling a Benjamin Button by acting like a carefree teenager again.”
“The actor seems to be pulling a Benjamin Button, as his appearance today is remarkably more youthful than it was a decade ago.”
Examples
simple
“He looks like he is pulling a Benjamin Button.”
“You are pulling a Benjamin Button in that new photograph.”
contextual
“After changing his diet and style, he looks so much younger that his friends joke he is pulling a Benjamin Button.”
“My grandmother is pulling a Benjamin Button because she has more energy and modern hobbies now than she did twenty years ago.”
“Since he retired and started traveling, he seems to be pulling a Benjamin Button by acting like a carefree teenager again.”
complex
“The actor seems to be pulling a Benjamin Button, as his appearance today is remarkably more youthful than it was a decade ago.”
Origin
The term refers to the title character of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a short story published by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1922. It concerns a man who enters the world in a state of advanced seniority and subsequently ages in reverse. The name has since attached itself to individuals who appear to possess a similarly inverted relationship with the passage of time.
Key words
Related idioms
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