Sentence:  Voltaire and Rousseau died in 1778, d'Alembert in 1783, and Diderot in 1784, while leading salonnières Mesdames du Deffand and d'Épinay passed away in 1780 and 1783. Beneath this sombre <WSD>necrology</WSD>, important shifts were occurring in the workings of the public sphere and in the sites in which opinion was constructed. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A listing of people who have died during a specific period of time.