freak of nature

Derived from Latin lūsus nātūrae (literally “sport of nature”),[1] originally used to refer to fossils or abnormalities such as two-headed snakes.

freak of nature (plural freaks of nature)

1. A monstrosity; a malformation; an abnormal organism.

   Synonyms: aberration, abnormality, anomaly, deformity, freak, monster, mutant, mutation, oddity, rarity

2. In the variety-show business, a person or an animal on exhibition as showing some strange deviation from nature, such as a bearded woman or an albino.
   • 1876–1877, Henry James, Jr., chapter 4, in The American, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, […], published 5 May 1877, →OCLC:

     He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another café, where more newspapers were taken and his postprandial demitasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences.

• force of nature

• “freak of nature”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• Lusus Naturae, Folklore, and Display in the Nineteenth Century