skeptic

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Middle French sceptique (but with a pronunciation closer to that of the Greek etymon), or possibly directly from Late Latin scepticus (originally attested only in the plural Scepticī (“the sect of Skeptics”)), from Ancient Greek σκεπτικός (skeptikós, “thoughtful, inquiring”), from σκέπτομαι (sképtomai, “I consider”), compare to σκοπέω (skopéō, “I view, examine”).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈskɛp.tɪk/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛptɪk

Noun

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skeptic (plural skeptics) (American spelling)

  1. Someone who doubts beliefs, claims, plans, etc that are accepted by others as true or appropriate, especially one who habitually does so.
    Coordinate term: cynic
    • 1997, Robert Faggen, Robert Frost and the Challenge of Darwin‎[1], University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 98:
      But for the fly he might have made me think He had been at his poetry , comparing Nailhead with fly and fly with huckleberry : How like a fly , how very like a fly . But the real fly he missed would never do ; The missed fly made me dangerously skeptic. […]
    • 2004, Anthony Lappé, Stephen Marshall, Ian Inaba, True Lies, Plume Books:
      The official account of this meeting was that it ended in failure, with the Taliban's mullah Omar telling General Ahmed, “Osama will be the last person to leave Afghanistan.” The 9/11 skeptics believe that meeting was meant to fail.
    • 2011 June 23, United States House Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Contracting and Workforce, Insourcing Gone Awry: Outsourcing Small Business Jobs, page 53:
      Even skeptics of the policy acknowledge that the Army conducted an exemplary insourcing program that successfully counteracted the Comptroller's budget ...
    • 2012, John Powers, A Bull of a Man, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 22:
      The Buddha's perfect body is particularly important in these tropes, and it serves to persuade skeptics of his claims to ultimate authority.
    • 2013, Dr Helga Turku, Isolationist States in an Interdependent World, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., →ISBN, page 113:
      Skeptics of this alliance were proven right because this partnership lasted only for a few years. Once Albania broke off diplomatic relations […]
  2. (in particular) Someone who is skeptical towards religion.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Adjective

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skeptic (comparative more skeptic, superlative most skeptic)

  1. Skeptical.
    • 1877 November 28, The Lancaster Daily; quoted in Joseph A[ugustus] Seiss, A Miracle in Stone: or The Great Pyramid of Egypt, Philadelphia, Pa.: Porter & Coates, […], 1877, page 239:
      This view of the Great Pyramid is being adopted by a widening circle of Christian believers, until even a skeptic scientist has dignified it as “the religion of the Pyramid!”
    • 2019, “Heart’s Confessions” by Rawda el-Haj, quotee, translated by Adil Babikir, Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page xxvii:
      No one but you can convince my heart, the stubborn, skeptic heart of mine to break the bad habit of breaking away.
    • 2021, Madhavi Menon, “The Mystery of Love”, in Nirmal Rathore, compiler, Beginning, Suvidhi Publishing House, →ISBN, page 45:
      With an increase in divorce rates and half of them growing up with divorced parents, they have a very skeptic view of the concept of ‘happily ever after’.

Derived terms

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References

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Anagrams

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