cause célèbre

See also: cause celebre

English

Alternative forms

• cause celebre (US)

Etymology

From French cause (“cause, case”) + célèbre (“famous”), in the title of an 18th-century compilation of famous legal cases, Causes célèbres.^[1]

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔːz sɛˈlɛbɹ(ə)/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɔz səˈlɛb/, /-ˈlɛbɹə/, sometimes /-ˈlɛbɹeɪ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• (like French) IPA^(key): /ˈkoʊz seɪˈlɛbɹ(ə)/

Noun

cause célèbre (plural causes célèbres)

1. (chiefly UK) An issue or incident (originally, a legal case) arousing widespread controversy or public debate.
   • 2021 February 15, Jack Nicas, “Parler, a Social Network That Attracted Trump Fans, Returns Online”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Getting iced out by the tech giants turned Parler into a cause célèbre for conservatives who complained they were being censored, as well as a test case for the openness of the internet.

Translations

issue or incident arousing heated public debate

Chinese: Mandarin: 引起轟動的事件／引起轰动的事件 (yǐnqǐ hōngdòng de shìjiàn) Danish: please add this translation if you can Dutch: cause célèbre f Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Finnish: kohuoikeudenkäynti (legal case) French: fait polémique m Italian: caso famoso m Japanese: please add this translation if you can Korean: please add this translation if you can Polish: głośna sprawa f Portuguese: acontecimento polémico m Russian: гро́мкое де́ло n (grómkoje délo) Serbo-Croatian: please add this translation if you can Spanish: tema de interés m Swedish: cause célèbre (sv) n Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can

References

1. Nicolas-Toussaint Des Essarts, editor (1773–1789), Causes célèbres‎ (in French)

Further reading

• cause célèbre on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “cause célèbre”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “cause célèbre”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “cause celebre”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Indonesian

Noun

cause célèbre (first-person possessive cause célèbreku, second-person possessive cause célèbremu, third-person possessive cause célèbrenya)

1. cause célèbre, cause celebre: an issue or incident (originally, a legal case) arousing widespread controversy or public debate.

Further reading

• “cause célèbre” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.