Molière

American  

[mohl-yair, maw-lyer] / moʊlˈjɛər, mɔˈljɛr /

noun

1. Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 1622–73, French actor and playwright.

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Molière British  

/ mɔljɛr /

noun

1. real name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. 1622–73, French dramatist, regarded as the greatest French writer of comedy. His works include Tartuffe (1664), Le Misanthrope (1666), L'Avare (1668), Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), and Le Malade imaginaire (1673)

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Molière Cultural  

1. Nom de plume of Jean Baptiste Poquelin, a seventeenth-century French playwright. He is best known for his comedies of satire, such as The Misanthrope and Tartuffe.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Molière

I am thankful to have grown up in a bilingual country and to have attended a high school where we studied Molière in French and Shakespeare in English.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026

But it strikes a false and pandering note, since Tartuffe, as in Molière, has been plainly exposed as an opportunistic, lascivious fraud—and the only one in the play.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025

A devotee of prevarication and double-dealing, Molière would have made the most, in three acts, of stories like these.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2023

Teenagers are, like Molière, keen to discover and condemn adult duplicity.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2023

The contrary defect, namely, a sycophantic amiability, which approves of everything and admires everything: example, the Philinte of Molière.

From Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Janet, Paul