William Makepeace Thackeray
1
7.6
- proper noun
- Many critics regard William Makepeace Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' as a masterpiece of English fiction.
Examples
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William Makepeace Thackeray is celebrated for his brilliant social satire in 19th-century English literature.
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The lecture discussed how William Makepeace Thackeray influenced later writers with his sharp wit and realism.
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I love William Makepeace Thackeray!
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What a genius William Makepeace Thackeray was!
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William Makepeace Thackeray is celebrated for his brilliant social satire in 19th-century English literature.
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Many critics regard William Makepeace Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' as a masterpiece of English fiction.
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The lecture discussed how William Makepeace Thackeray influenced later writers with his sharp wit and realism.
Surface Forms
Morphology
William + Makepeace + Thackeray
This string is a full proper name: knowing the constituent words only signals that it is a person's name, not that the person is an English novelist and satirist. Proper names are referentially arbitrary and their encyclopedic information (dates, profession) cannot be derived compositionally from the name parts, so the specific meaning is not predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
William Makepeace Thackeray was a 19th-century English novelist best known for the book 'Vanity Fair' and for his sharp, often funny portraits of people in high society. Think of him as a writer who used satire to show people's faults and the games of social ambition.