skeptic
Americannoun
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a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.
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a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.
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a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, or of important elements of it.
- Synonyms:
- doubter
- Antonyms:
- believer
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(initial capital letter)
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a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible.
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any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind.
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adjective
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pertaining to skeptics or skepticism; skeptical.
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(initial capital letter) pertaining to the Skeptics.
noun
Related Words
See agnostic.
Other Word Forms
- antiskeptic noun
- nonskeptic adjective
- skeptical adjective
- skeptically adverb
- skepticalness noun
- skepticism noun
Etymology
Origin of skeptic
1565–75; < Late Latin scepticus thoughtful, inquiring (in plural Scepticī the Skeptics) < Greek skeptikós, equivalent to sképt ( esthai ) to consider, examine (akin to skopeîn to look; -scope ) + -ikos -ic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I’m an AI skeptic, yet Mr. Park has shifted my outlook on the tech and its potential as a tool in artists’ creative arsenals.
Friday night’s audience created a third committee, composed entirely of avid, angry Rochester skeptics.
From Literature
Topol, who has written extensively about advanced technology in medicine, is nothing like an AI skeptic.
From Los Angeles Times
But at the Hispanic Republic Club bash, we skeptics might as well been living in a different dimension.
From Los Angeles Times
In Beijing on Wednesday for his inaugural visit, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, long a China skeptic, will try to set a new tone with its biggest trading partner.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
