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Charlotte Corday

Charlotte Corday

1 9.9
A French woman who killed the political leader Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution
  • proper noun
: Charlotte Corday
  • The assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday changed the course of revolutionary politics.

Examples

  • Historians often debate the motives of Charlotte Corday in killing Marat.

  • Charlotte Corday is celebrated in history for assassinating Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution.

  • Charlotte Corday is remembered for her dramatic role in the French Revolution.

  • Did Charlotte Corday assassinate Marat?

  • What a brave act by Charlotte Corday!

  • The actions of Charlotte Corday are often analyzed in the context of their impact on the revolutionary movement.

  • Many people view Charlotte Corday as a pivotal figure in the events surrounding the French Revolution.

Synonyms

9.9

A French woman who killed the newspaper writer Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution

is a simpler neutral reference focusing on the killing rather than praise

Surface Forms

Morphology

Charlotte + Corday

This is a personal name referring to a specific historical figure; the meanings of the constituent tokens 'Charlotte' and 'Corday' do not encode the biographical fact that she assassinated Marat. Proper names are not compositionally informative, so a B1 learner who knows the words would still need specific historical/cultural knowledge to understand the MWE.

Etymology

Charlotte Corday was a young woman in the French Revolution who went to the home of the writer Jean-Paul Marat and killed him with a knife. That's why her name is remembered for 'killing a political leader' and for a single dramatic act meant to change politics.