cause célèbre
noun
any controversy that attracts great public attention, as a celebrated legal case or trial.
causes célèbres
-
pluralof cause célèbre.plural
The grammatical form denoting more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Only since the advent of blogs and social media, however, have average Janes been transformed into viral causes célèbres overnight.
From New York Times ● Jul. 21, 2018
Over the next few decades the Scottsboro Boys, as they were known, became causes célèbres of the civil rights movement—their case twice advanced to the Supreme Court.
From Time ● Jun. 26, 2015
As word of their case spread abroad, they fast became international causes célèbres, gathering support from human rights groups and musicians including Bjork, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Patti Smith and Pete Townshend.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 18, 2014
The causes célèbres of Madame Rachel, the Beauty Doctor, and of the nun, Miss Saurin, against her Mother Superior, Mrs. Starr, appear also to have been topics of conversation.
From Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life by Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers
Considering all the circumstances, and the attention which was attracted to the case throughout the learned world, this is very curious: it will form one of the most remarkable of the causes célèbres.
From The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, June, 1851 by Various
