In business, this is a product, remote office, employee, etc., who doesn't get respect. The moniker stems from the popular slang phrase "beat you like a red-headed stepchild." Often times, the disrespect is undeserved.
If a product is an embarrassment to a company, it is the company's red-headed stepchild.
If a product is an embarrassment to a company, it is the company's red-headed stepchild.
The satellite office was outperforming the head office statistically, but because it created work for people in the head office, it was treated like a red-headed stepchild.
Because the Edsel didn't sell well, it became Ford's red-headed stepchild.
Because the Edsel didn't sell well, it became Ford's red-headed stepchild.
by Glenwood October 01, 2006
Term from rural America describing person who is socially outcast and easily picked on. Usually meeting the business end of a fist, boot, broomstick, bat, broken bottle, and/or foreign objects of injurious force. Often at the end of the tag line, "I'll beat you like a..."
"Hey you boy, yeah you. We don't take kindly to new folk lookin' funny like that. You best be leavin' or I'll beat you like a red-headed stepchild"
by Bloody Abo September 05, 2006
A child who is obviously not your own, a child who is treated worse than other children in the family
by Vindriss December 01, 2005
With red hair being rare, a child born to non red headed parents was often assumed to be the child of an affair. Thus was treated badly, usually in the form of beatings.
by Little Red Knitter January 28, 2009
by Tim September 13, 2004
Applied to one who does not fit in and is shunned for the differences and/or is bullied at a high degree
by Big Mike November 01, 2004
A term that originated out of the common mistreatment and social ostracism of redheaded individuals (gingers). A redheaded individual born into(legitamately or not), or adopted into a family of non-redheads was typically subject to physical and emotional abuse, and usually short handed when it came to financial matters in the family, such as the estate or any savings the family had acquired. Today, the term can be applied to an individual or group of individuals who are outcasts, or are typically dealt the worst hand in society.
by AppleFlapper April 17, 2009