wild man

plural wild men · alternative wildman · alternative wild-man

1. EuropeanartsA mythic or legendary primitive man inhabiting forests or wilderness regions, typically depicted as hairy all over and unclothed.

   "So said Hair-Face, and they killed him, because, they said, he was a wild man and wanted to go back and live in a tree."

   1914, Jack London, The Strength of the Strong

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   He had rescued the duchess from the very fangs of the monster, which, he assured the ladies, was neither a wolf, nor a bear, nor yet a wild man of the woods.

   1820, Washington Irving, “The Widow's Ordeal”, in The Crayon Papers

   1. EuropeanIn heraldry and artartsA representation of such a figure, usually shown as a club-bearing, hairy man of the woods.
2. A rowdy, dissolute, rash, or violent man.

   He's a wild man, with all kinds of punches,—a whirlwind,— and he gets his man in the first rounds.

   1905, Jack London, chapter 3, in The Game

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   [H]e was a sinner, unregenerated, a wild man in her estimation, a being of quite another kind than herself.

   1879, Anthony Trollope, chapter 18, in John Caldigate

   "David and I are very enthusiastic people, and we want to be able to make lots of noise. . . . David is quite a wild man when he gets excited with music."

   1901, Upton Sinclair, chapter 1, in King Midas

   In no time, she has persuaded him to unleash his inner wild man, and soon they are washing down pills with booze and bouncing off the walls.

   2014 March 14, Stephen Holden, "Where Performance Enhancers Are Legal" (film review), New York Times (retrieved 4 June 2015)

   Synonyms: miscreant, rascal, roughneck, ruffian

3. A man who advocates unorthodox or outrageous opinions or who behaves in an eccentric manner.

   In popular lore, Feynman often comes off as the wild man of physics, throwing out one crazy idea after another in a frenzied search for truth.

   2011 April 1, George Johnson, "Richard Feynman, the Thinker" (book review), New York Times (retrieved 4 June 2015)

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   "They're saying I'm a wild man. If I turn the trick, they'll say I'm a genius." So said Royal Little, the mild, 50-year-old president of Textron Inc., whose unconventional production ideas have built a textile empire in less than three years.

   1946 May 27, “Textron's Trick”, in Time, retrieved 04 Jun 2015

   Synonyms: kook