curie

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a unit of radioactivity equal to the amount of a radioactive isotope that decays at the rate of 37,000,000,000 disintegrations per second
noun French physicist; husband of Marie Curie (1859-1906)
noun French chemist (born in Poland) who won two Nobel prizes; one (with her husband and Henri Becquerel) for research on radioactivity and another for her discovery of radium and polonium (1867-1934)

Borrowed from French curie. Named after French physicist Pierre Curie (1859–1906).

She is a genius, that woman--the Curies were as nothing to her. — The Big Four, Agatha Christie
To treat my daughter Amy, the Madame Curie of her ninth grade, to a real vacation. — The Samurai Strategy, Thomas Hoover
These labours—the first that were attempted in radiography—served to open the way for Monsieur and Madame Curie to the discovery of radium. — The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Gaston Leroux

Type a word, a sentence, a book title, or a link to an English article. WordNet and the Classics answer.

Try

A library of classics · a vault of words · instant etymology & meaning