Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc

English

Etymology

Appellativisation of Joan of Arc, the name of a 15th century French folk heroine revered as a martyr.

Noun

Joan of Arc (plural Joans of Arc or Joan of Arcs)

1. (figuratively) A brave, visionary, or martial woman.
   • 2013, Arcade Fire, "Joan of Arc", Reflektor:

     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 Arc

   • 2020, Lindsay Harroff, "From Sitting In to Sitting Out: Gloria Richardson and the 1963 Cambridge Movement", in Like Wildfire: The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Sit-Ins (eds. Lesli K. Pace & Sean Patrick O'Rourke), page 204:

     Volatile yet stubborn, self-interested yet a modern Joan of Arc—criticisms of Richardson were as contradictory as they claimed her to be.

   • 2021, Steve Giblin & Jon Land, Walking in Mud: A Navy SEAL’s 10 Rules for Surviving the New Normal, unnumbered page:

     Digressing a bit, the mission statement of this chapter is to illustrate the example set for all of us by the Joan of Arcs of today—women who serve in Special Operations in particular, and the military in general […]

Related terms

• Joan of Arcian

Further reading

• Joan of Arc at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “Joan of Arc”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “Joan of Arc”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “Joan of Arc”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “Joan of Arc”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.