Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc noun: a brave, visionary, or martial woman.
Noun
Joan of Arc (plural Joans of Arc or Joan of Arcs)
- A brave, visionary, or martial woman.
- At the heart of the matter lies a simple truth. It is that Joans of Arc, to fulfill the most shining symmetries of their destinies, should not grow interminably old. The fiery leader of the Fighting French in 1940 looks a trifle better, in perspective, than the recent candidate for re-election who...1966 January 27, Charles Poore, “Books of The Times: General de Gaulle Is Wired for History”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC
- And they're the ones that put you down/ 'Cause they got no heart / But I'm the one that will follow you / You're my Joan of Arc2013, Arcade Fire, “Joan of Arc”, in Reflektor
Forms of Joan of Arc
| plural | Joans of Arc |
|---|---|
| plural | Joan of Arcs |
Origin of Joan of Arc
Appellativisation of Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), the name of a 15th century French folk heroine revered as a martyr. Further etymology The name itself is a calque of French Jeanne d'Arc. According to surviving signatures, her Old French given name was Jehanne, feminine form of Jehan (cognate in English to John). In the English language, her first name has been repeated as Joan since the fifteenth century because that was the only English equivalent for the feminine form of John during her lifetime, Jane not being attested until later. She did not come from a place called Arc; d'Arc was attributed because of her father's surname, which was most likely Darc. Apostrophes were never used in fifteenth-century French surnames, which sometimes leads to confusion when analyzing such names. See Wikipedia (Name of Joan of Arc) for more.
Questions about Joan of Arc
- What does Joan of Arc mean?
- Joan of Arc means a brave, visionary, or martial woman.
- What part of speech is Joan of Arc?
- Joan of Arc is a noun.
- What is the plural of Joan of Arc?
- The plural of Joan of Arc is Joans of Arc.
Words near Joan of Arc in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Joan of Arc (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “Joan of Arc.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/joan_of_arc. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.