Mathew B. Brady

1 9.1

An American photographer known as the Union's official photographer who took famous Civil War portraits

proper noun
/ˈmæθjuː biː ˈbreɪdi/

: Mathew B. Brady

Mathew B. Brady is credited with documenting the horrors of the Civil War through his remarkable photographs.

Examples

Many of the earliest photographs of Abraham Lincoln were taken by Mathew B. Brady.
Mathew B. Brady took many famous portraits.
The legacy of Mathew B. Brady continues to influence photography and historical documentation today.
Mathew B. Brady was a brilliant photographer.
Mathew B. Brady is credited with documenting the horrors of the Civil War through his remarkable photographs.
Many of the earliest photographs of Abraham Lincoln were taken by Mathew B. Brady.
The legacy of Mathew B. Brady continues to influence photography and historical documentation today.

Synonyms

Mathew Brady

vsMathew B. Brady

1 8.1

An American photographer who took famous portraits and photos of the American Civil War

is the same name but presented with a middle initial

Surface Forms

Mathew B. Brady main

Morphology

Mathew + B. + Brady

This item is a proper name referring to a specific historical person; the biographical meaning (that he was a pioneering American photographer and Civil War photographer) cannot be derived from the constituent name tokens 'Mathew', 'B.' and 'Brady', which are merely lexical labels. Proper names are referential and rely on cultural or world knowledge rather than compositional semantics, so a B1 learner who only knows the parts would not infer the MWE's full meaning.

Etymology

Mathew B. Brady was an early American photographer who carried heavy, slow cameras to take powerful pictures of presidents and of Civil War battlefields and soldiers. Because his photos showed the real faces and costs of war, his name now often stands for a photographer who 'documents history'.