- Feb 10 Jozef Wenceslas, monarch of Liechtenstein/general, dies at 75
- Feb 18 Johann Hartwig Ernst, Count von Bernstorff, Danish statesman (b. 1712)
- Mar 2 Robert J Pothier, French lawyer, dies at 73
- Mar 21 Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, French cartographer (b. 1703)
- Mar 22 John Canton, English physicist, dies at 53
- Mar 26 Charles Pinot Duclos, French writer (b. 1704)
- Mar 29 Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher and mathematician (b. 1688)
- Apr 28 Johann Friedrich Struensee, physician of Christian VII of Denmark (b. 1737)
- May 1 Gottfried Achenwall, German lawyer/statistics/economist, dies at 52
- May 11 Joseph Kerckhoff, Limburg surgeon/robber captain, hanged
- May 22 Durastante Natalucci, Italian historian (b. 1687)
- Jun 12 Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, French explorer (b. 1724)
- Jun 18 Gerard van Swieten, Dutch-Austrian physician (Austrian Empress Maria Theresa's personal physician), dies at 72
- Jun 18 Johann Ulrich von Cramer, German judge and philosopher (b. 1706)
- Aug 31 William Borlase, English naturalist (b. 1695)
- Sep 30 James Brindley, English engineer (b. 1716)
- Oct 7 John Woolman, American Quaker preacher and abolitionist, dies of smallpox at 51
- Nov 5 Pieter Steyn, Dutch grand pensionary (1749-72), dies at 66
- Nov 10 Pedro Antonio Joaquim Correa da Serra Garção, Portuguese poet (b. 1724)
- Nov 11 John Mauritius Quinkhard, portrait painter, dies at 84
- Nov 19 William Nelson, American colonial governor of Virginia (b. 1711)
- Dec 28 Ernst J earl van/of Biron, Russian duke of Courland, dies at 82