Babeuf

[ ba-bœf ]

noun

1. Fran·çois No·ël [f, r, ah, n, -, swa, noh-, el], Gracchus Babeuf, 1760–97, French revolutionary.

Babeuf

/ babœf /

noun

1. BabeufFrançois Noël17601797MFrenchPOLITICS: political agitator François Noël (frɑ̃swa nɔɛl) 1760–97, French political agitator: plotted unsuccessfully to destroy the Directory and establish a communistic system

Word History and Origins

Origin of Babeuf¹

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

In Aubervilliers, a suburb north of Paris, 51-year-old street-sweeper Franck Durieux was dropping his 9- and 10-year-old sons off at the Babeuf elementary school.

From Wall Street Journal

The Beginnings of Modern Communism.—As early as 1796 Babeuf published in Paris a communistic manifesto which maintained the thesis that natural law gives all men an equal right to the enjoyment of all goods.

From Project Gutenberg

He proclaimed the right of property as appertaining to the state, that is, to the whole community; Babeuf. the doctrine of equality as absolutely opposed to social inequality of any kind—that of property as well as that of rank; and finally the inadequacy of the solution of the agrarian question, which had profited scarcely any one, save a new class of privileged individuals.

From Project Gutenberg

The secret societies, under the influence of Blanqui and Barb�s, two revolutionaries who had revived the traditions of Babeuf, were not willing to wait for the complete education of the masses, necessarily a long process.

From Project Gutenberg

He is said to have betrayed to the director Barras the secret of the strange plot which Babeuf and a few accomplices hatched in the year 1796; but recent research has tended to throw doubt on the assertion.

From Project Gutenberg