15 minutes of fame
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.26 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A very short time in the spotlight or brief flurry with fame, after which the person or subject involved is quickly forgotten.
Example Sentences
- "[…] Paula [Jones] was, even to her lawyers, a loose cannon—as prepared to risk her marriage and her well-being to get the president to confess his original sin as she was intent on making big money and getting her fifteen minutes of fame."
- "In the next chapter, we'll meet twenty-five hopefuls who have already begun to experience their fifteen minutes of fame as a result of exposure on YouTube."
- "By the time we went to Central Park, someone walking in the park said they had just seen us on Fox that morning. It was like being a rock star with a whole fifteen minutes of fame. So it was fun for a time."
- "After just a month on television, this ordinary chap from Catford, south London, was an overnight superstar, ready to milk his 15 minutes of fame."
- "One day in early January 1970, Michael James Brody Jr. stepped off a Pan Am jet at John F. Kennedy Airport and into what would be one of the new decade’s shortest, strangest 15 minutes of fame."
Etymology
First appears c. 1968, although a use in French appears as early as 1821 in Histoire de l'Assemblée constituante by Charles Lacretelle. Often misattributed to Andy Warhol, in a catalogue of an exhibition of his art in Stockholm: “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”