scientist

noun

sci·​en·​tist ˈsī-ən-tist 

1

: a person learned in science and especially natural science : a scientific investigator

2

capitalized : christian scientist

Examples of scientist in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In a preface to the White House’s proposed draconian downsizing of the American space agency, its acting administrator, Janet Petro, concedes that NASA will be forced to cut away at its ranks of illustrious scientists. —Kevin Holden Platt, Forbes.com, 28 June 2025

So the attribution of anthropogenic climate change was proven beyond reasonable doubt, with 97% acceptance among scientists. —Oliver Swainston, Space.com, 28 June 2025

The Inuit community wants to work with scientists to set up a provincial park that would protect the land while allowing researchers to study it. —Adithi Ramakrishnan, Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2025

What scientists also find interesting about the boxwork patterns is they have not been found anywhere else on the mountain by orbiters overhead or Curiosity. —Greg Wehner, FOXNews.com, 27 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

scient- (in Latin scientia "knowledge, science" or in scientific) + -ist entry 1

Note: The word scientist was apparently first introduced by the English polymath William Whewell (1794-1866). The coinage is referred to in an unsigned book review authored by Whewell in The Quarterly Review, vol. 51 (March & June, 1834), pp. 58-59: "The tendency of the sciences has long been an increasing proclivity to separation and dismemberment …The mathematician turns away from the chemist; the chemist from the naturalist; the mathematician, left to himself, divides himself into a pure mathematician and a mixed mathematician, who soon part company; the chemist is perhaps a chemist of electro-chemistry; if so, he leaves common chemical analysis to others; between the mathematician and the chemist is to be interpolated a 'physicien' (we have no English name for him), who studies heat, moisture, and the like. And thus science, even mere physical science, loses all traces of unity. A curious illustration of this result may be observed in the want of any name by which we can designate the students of the knowledge of the material world collectively. We are informed that this difficulty was felt very oppresively by the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in their meetings at York, Oxford, and Cambridge, in the last three summers. 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. [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge, both in his capacity of philologer [philologist] and metaphysician; savans was rather assuming, besides being French instead of English; some ingenious gentleman [apparently William Whewell himself] 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 …." As Whewell indicates, his coinage was not a success, though, undeterred, he reintroduced it in 1840, and the word seems to have been produced independently of Whewell in the following two decades in both Britain and the United States (where it was more readily accepted). For documentation and details, see Sydney Ross, "Scientist: the story of a word," Annals of Science, vol. 18, no. 2 (June, 1962), pp. 65-85.

First Known Use

1834, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing scientist

• rocket scientist

Kids Definition

scientist

noun

sci·​en·​tist ˈsī-ənt-əst 

: a person skilled in science and especially natural science : a scientific investigator

Medical Definition

scientist

noun

sci·​en·​tist ˈsī-ənt-əst 

: a person learned in science and especially natural science : a scientific investigator