Giacomo Casanova
- proper noun
- /ˈdʒiːəkoʊmoʊ ˈkæsəˌnoʊvə/
:
Giacomo Casanova
- Historians credit Giacomo Casanova with providing a unique insight into 18th-century European society through his memoirs.
Examples
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The museum in Venice features artifacts related to Giacomo Casanova's travels and romances.
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Many biographies have been written about Giacomo Casanova and his adventurous life.
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Giacomo Casanova was famous.
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What about Giacomo Casanova?
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Historians credit Giacomo Casanova with providing a unique insight into 18th-century European society through his memoirs.
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Many biographies have been written about Giacomo Casanova and his adventurous life.
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The museum in Venice features artifacts related to Giacomo Casanova's travels and romances.
Synonyms
27
9.4
An Italian writer and adventurer from the 1700s who wrote about his romantic life
An Italian writer and adventurer famous for writing about his own life and many love affairs in the 1700s
Surface Forms
Morphology
Giacomo + Casanova
This is a proper name referring to a specific historical person; its referent (an 18th-century Italian adventurer and memoirist) is not compositionally built from the parts 'Giacomo' and 'Casanova'. Knowing the constituent tokens does not allow a B1 learner to derive the biographical meaning—proper names are arbitrary and referential—so the expression is opaque. (Note: 'Casanova' may be lexicalized as 'womanizer' in some languages, but that does not make the full name compositionally transparent.)
Etymology
Giacomo Casanova was a real Italian writer and adventurer in the 1700s who wrote lively memoirs about his many love affairs. Because people read these stories, his name became a short way to say 'a man who has many lovers'.