poster child

noun

1
: a child who has a disease and is pictured in posters to solicit funds for combating the disease
2
: a person having a public image that is identified with something (such as a cause)

Examples of poster child in a Sentence

She was a stirring speaker and activist and soon became the poster child of the antiwar movement.
Recent Examples on the Web The poster child for this new chaos is Max, which first shocked longtime subscribers to predecessor services HBO Max and HBO Now by suddenly squeezing The Sopranos into the same row as Dr. Pimple Popper. Vulture, 27 Oct. 2023 Saba, Maccabi Haifa’s attacking midfielder and forward, seemed an appropriate poster child for the Greens: a Palestinian citizen of Israel idolized by the 30,000 mostly Jewish fans who packed Sammy Ofer Stadium in northern Israel every week. Kevin Sieff, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2023 Gleevec deserves its place as personalized medicine’s poster child. WIRED, 4 Sep. 2023 Meta is requiring three days a week in the office starting in September, while Zoom, which is the poster child of remote work pandemic culture, is asking workers to come in twice a week. Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post, 28 Aug. 2023 That’s because Nvidia is the poster child of the AI enthusiasm that’s helped power stocks into a bull market, even as the US Federal Reserve has continued to hike interest rates in its battle against inflation. Krystal Hur, CNN, 23 Aug. 2023 The poster child for these efforts, bedaquiline, received FDA approval in 2012 and represented the first novel mechanism to treat the disease in 40 years. Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 14 July 2023 But as remote work has upended the thrum of daily life, the city has become a poster child for petty crime, public drug use and tent encampments, even though the quality of life in most San Francisco neighborhoods hasn’t significantly changed. Heather Knight Jim Wilson, New York Times, 26 Sep. 2023 Bananas are the bang-for-buck poster child, typically setting you back less than 70 cents per pound in the US. Ali Francis, Bon Appétit, 26 Sep. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'poster child.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1938, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of poster child was in 1938

Dictionary Entries Near poster child

Cite this Entry

“Poster child.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poster%20child. Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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