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Byword vs Robespierre - What's the difference?

byword | robespierre |

As a noun byword

is a proverb or proverbial expression, common saying; a frequently used word or phrase.

As a proper noun Robespierre is

the French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre, 1758-1794. Often used as a byword for a murderous demagogue or tyrant.

byword

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A proverb or proverbial expression, common saying; a frequently used word or phrase.
  • A characteristic word or expression; a word or phrase associated with a person or group.
  • Someone or something that stands (metonymically) for something else, by having some of that something's characteristic traits.
  • An object of notoriety or contempt, scorn or derision.
  • * 1890 , (Oscar Wilde), The Picture of Dorian Gray , chapter XII:
    • "I know you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should not have made his sister's name a by-word ."
  • A nickname or epithet.

    • robespierre

    English

    Proper noun

    (en proper noun)
  • The French Revolutionary leader , 1758-1794. Often used as a byword for a murderous demagogue or tyrant.
  • * {{quote-book, 1863, , Spectator of America citation
    • , passage=Why, Greeley wants to be blood-thirsty — he wants to be a little Robespierre .}}
  • * {{quote-news, 1922, October 2, , Gonatas Not a Robespierre, Boston Daily Globe citation
    • , passage="I am not, as you have seen, a Robespierre , and I don't even want to be thought of as a military dictator," said Col Gonatas, leader of the revolutionary movement,
  • * {{quote-book, 2007, Peter Heller, The Whale Warriors citation
    • , passage=During communications blackouts when Allison, who was the Robespierre of the ship, forbade all outside contacts, Taggart lurched out onto the aft deck, ----