poster child
One who is a prototypical or quintessential example of something.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“He is the poster child for healthy living.”
“My cousin is the poster child for bad luck.”
“After winning the marathon, she became the poster child for the new fitness program.”
“This old laptop is the poster child for bad design because the battery dies after only twenty minutes of use.”
“The company became the poster child for corporate greed when they raised prices while cutting their employees' pay.”
“The messy desk in the corner is the poster child for poor organization, with piles of old papers and empty coffee cups covering every inch of space.”
“The small town became the poster child for economic decline after the local factory closed its doors forever.”
The term arises from the twentieth-century practice of featuring appealing children and young people in charitable advertisements. These figures appeared on posters to elicit public sympathy and donations for specific medical or social causes. The idiom has since detached itself from the physical medium of the poster to describe any individual serving as a quintessential representative of a particular trait or movement.
- 01
call someone everything but a child of God
To call someone many abusive names.
- 02
heavy with child
visibly pregnant
- 03
poster boy
A male exemplar of some trait.
- 04
poster girl
A female exemplar of some trait.
- 05
problem child
Someone or something persistently difficult or vexing; a frequent source of trouble or annoyance.
- 06
sweet summer child
Someone who is naive, or who has never experienced hardship.
Last updated August 10, 2026