Meanings
plural Little Lord Fauntleroys · plural Little Lords Fauntleroy
- derogatoryinformalA fancy, spoilt little child.
Why should the servants and drones need any knowledge beyond exactly that knowledge that they, the Little Lords Fauntleroy of the universe, require them to have?
2025 January 10, Phil Christman, “Does Teaching Literature and Writing Have a Future?”, in The Plough2 more examples
BBC panel show Would I Lie To You? would have you believe that he was a Little Lord Fauntleroy; his comfortable characterisation on Peep Show, meanwhile, hints at a real-life, history-obsessed dolt.
2012 October 16, “David Mitchell’s Back Story is funny and thoughtfully composed”, in MetroBut its round-the-world offering – not to mention the bottomless ice-cream counter – is virtually guaranteed to cater to even the pickiest of palates and leave even the fussiest of Little Lord Fauntleroys full to the brim.
2016 March 15, “Five of the best Edinburgh child-friendly restaurants”, in The Scotsman
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Coined by English-American playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1886, in her novel Little Lord Fauntleroy. The title character (a boy who grows up in poverty but inherits the title of Lord Fauntleroy) is depicted as generous and charmingly innocent rather than spoilt or greedy, but changing social mores led to the character being seen as effeminate and priggish. By the 1930s, around the time of the release of the 1936 film Little Lord Fauntleroy, the name had come to be a term of abuse for a snobby or fussy man or boy.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Little Lord Fauntleroy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Little%20Lord%20Fauntleroy
“Little Lord Fauntleroy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Little%20Lord%20Fauntleroy. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Little%20Lord%20Fauntleroy.
Source: Little Lord Fauntleroy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.