scientist

Meaning

Noun

• One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research, or make use of the results of the research of others.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• citizen scientist
• computer scientist
• data scientist
• natural scientist
• pseudoscientist

Origin

• in an anonymous review of Mary Somerville's book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences in the Quarterly Review as a suggested replacement for,{{quote-journal
• |en
• |year=1834
• |author=William Whewell
• |editor=John Gibson Lockhart
• |publisher=John Murray
• |city=London
• |title=On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences by Mrs. Somerville
• |journal=Quarterly Review
• |volume=51
• |page=59
• |pageurl=https://books.google.de/books?id=uWsJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA59#v=onepage&q&f=false
• |passage=There was no general term by which these gentlemen could describe themselves with reference to their pursuits. Philosophers was felt to be too wide and too lofty a term, and was very properly forbidden them by Mr. Coleridge, both in his capacity of philologer and metaphysician; savans was rather assuming, besides being French instead of English; some ingenious gentleman proposed that, by analogy with artist, they might form scientist, and added that there could be no scruple in making free with this termination when we have such words as sciolist, economist, and atheist — but this was not generally palatable
• and later seriously introduced by him in 1840{{quote-book
• |en
• |year=1840
• |author=William Whewell|pageurl=https://archive.org/details/philosophyinduc01whewgoog/page/n580/mode/2up |title=The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded Upon Their History, Vol. 2 |page=560
• as a more precise substitute for, the terms natural philosopher and man of science. Modeled after artist, from the Latin stem scientia with the suffix -ist.