Voltaire

[vohl-tair, vol-, vawl-ter]

noun

1. François Marie Arouet, 1694–1778, French philosopher, historian, satirist, dramatist, and essayist.

Voltaire

/ vəʊl-, vɔltɛr, vɒlˈtɛə /

noun

1. pseudonym of François Marie Arouet. 1694–1778, French writer, whose outspoken belief in religious, political, and social liberty made him the embodiment of the 18th-century Enlightenment. His major works include Lettres philosophiques (1734) and the satire Candide (1759). He also wrote plays, such as Zaïre (1732), poems, and scientific studies. He suffered several periods of banishment for his radical views

Voltaire

1. The nom de plume of François Arouet, an eighteenth-century French philosopher and author and a major figure of the Enlightenment. Voltaire was known as a wit and freethinker. The most famous of his works is Candide.

Other Word Forms

• Voltairean adjective
• Voltairian adjective

Example Sentences

Voltaire would have warned that history repeats and repeats and repeats.

From Los Angeles Times

On the library shelves, Voltaire and George Eliot are joined by Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner, the Ventura lawyer and author who created Perry Mason.

From Los Angeles Times

The resulting images — a cloud shaped like “an angry sandwich,” a bird making a home inside “a nice friendly bear” — would not have been out of place at the Cabaret Voltaire.

From Los Angeles Times

To this day, it is often misattributed to Voltaire.

From Los Angeles Times

Servers wended through the crowd, carrying hors d’oeuvres trays of crescent duck and caviar as they passed shelves lined with rare editions of works by Rousseau and Voltaire.

From New York Times