prodigy

Noun

prodigy (plural prodigies)

1. An extraordinary occurrence or creature; an anomaly, especially a monster; a freak.
2. An amazing or marvellous thing; a wonder.
   • He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXXII, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 153
3. A wonderful example of something.
   • Traffic at Dover Marine has developed far beyond anything envisaged when the station was built. The layout has become rather cramped, and prodigies of organisation are performed annually by all concerned to save complete saturation.1959 October, T. W. E. Roche, “Traffic Working at Dover Marine Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 680
4. An extremely talented person, especially a child.

   Synonyms:

   wunderkind, boy-genius, boy wonder, girl-genius, girl wonder, child prodigy

5. (archaic) An extraordinary thing seen as an omen; a portent.
   • These on the farther bank now stood and gazed, / By Heaven alarm’d, by prodigies amazed: / A signal omen stopp’d the passing host, / Their martial fury in their wonder lost.1717, Homer, “Book XII”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume III, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC
   • Prodigies and Portents have infected the beſt VVritings of Antiquity; and have ſo blotted and deformed our modern Annals, that (vvith greater Juſtice than Polybius has obſerv'd it, of the former) they may be rather called Tragedies than History.1727, William Warburton, “Part I”, in A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as Related by Historians. […], London: […] Thomas Corbett, […], →OCLC, page 1