David Ben-Gurion

2 6.8

A leader who helped create Israel and became its first prime minister

proper noun

: David Ben-Gurion

On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion announced the establishment of the state of Israel.

Examples

I recall, in particular, his historic meetings with Nahum Goldmann in London in 1951 and with David Ben Gurion in New York in 1960.

Academic text (1990)
Israel's founding leader and longtime prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, once predicted that the Arabs would accept Israel only when they found themselves unable to destroy it.

Academic text (1990)
In his role as the first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion played a crucial part in shaping the country.
As a prominent leader, David Ben-Gurion was instrumental in the Zionist movement during the early 20th century.

Synonyms

Ben Gurion

vsDavid Ben-Gurion

10 7.4

An Israeli leader who became Israel's first prime minister and helped found the country

asserts the person was the main national founder rather than a participant

Surface Forms

David Ben-Gurion main

Morphology

David + Ben-Gurion

This is a proper name referring to a specific historical person; knowing the constituent parts ‘David’ and ‘Ben-Gurion’ does not allow a B1 learner to infer that he was an Israeli statesman or the primary founder of Israel. Proper names are arbitrary/encyclopedic and require prior cultural or historical knowledge rather than compositional word-meaning inference.

Etymology

David Ben-Gurion comes from Hebrew: Ben means 'son' and Gurion comes from a word for 'young lion', so the name paints the image 'son of a lion'. He was Israel's first prime minister and the main founder of the country, so his name now stands for 'Israel's founding leader'.