noun

• A member of a family or group who is regarded as a disgrace to it.

  ‘Michael's younger brother was the black sheep of the family’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Just suffice it to say that I have stood where you stand now - scorned by family members, labeled a black sheep.’
  • ‘Would my beliefs make me the black sheep of the family?’
  • ‘She is the black sheep of the family; drug rehab, shoplifting - you name it, she has done it.’
  • ‘However, I am the black sheep in a family of shopaholics.’
  • ‘Having always been the extroverted black sheep in my family I'd always been very curious about these things we weren't allowed to do.’
  • ‘As a young man, he was branded a black sheep after leaving his family's granite merchant business in Aberdeen and moving to Falkirk to launch his own firm.’
  • ‘Now, I'm the black sheep of the family, the ungrateful and neglectful daughter.’
  • ‘What we are is a family and like every family we have some black sheep and our behaviour is sometimes totally unacceptable.’
  • ‘I was the black sheep of my family, getting in trouble trying to get rich.’
  • ‘Every family has a black sheep, and I guess I was the one for our family.’
  • ‘Sarah is the free spirit black sheep of a rich family and is known for her impulsive, spontaneous personality.’
  • ‘Staten Island is sort of the black sheep of the five boroughs.’
  • ‘We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs.’
  • ‘There are black sheep in every profession and in today's society, where the emphasis is on money, there will be those who seek to enrich themselves at all costs.’
  • ‘I'm already a black sheep as it is, I didn't need to be pushed out further.’
  • ‘‘If we vote no we won't stop it, but we will become the black sheep of Europe,’ he said.’
  • ‘Such cases are the black sheep to an otherwise impeccable theory.’
  • ‘All families are untidy, with their unsolved mysteries, unspoken secrets, black sheep and messy relationships.’
  • ‘The whole thing was debunked by three university professors who quickly became the black sheep of the scientific establishment.’
  • ‘I'm happy enough to be the black sheep of the team, just like I'm the most downwardly mobile member of my family.’