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

Planetary Healing As Governance Template When scientists discovered the expanding hole over Antarctica in the 1980s, the world faced a choice between short-term economic interests and long-term planetary survival. —Cornelia C. Walther, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2025

To create the new surface—which the FDA categorizes differently from other breast implants on the market—Motiva partnered with scientists studying nanotechnology’s role in breast implant surface design at the University of Manchester in England. —Megan McIntyre, Allure, 16 Sep. 2025

In another sign that Wisconsin maritime historians are in a golden period of discovery, a wooden schooner hidden beneath the depths of Lake Michigan for nearly 140 years has been found — with citizen scientists on board to share the excitement. —Caitlin Looby, jsonline.com, 15 Sep. 2025

One of these is the Lost City, a vast hydrothermal field at the bottom of the Atlantic—a kind of unique prehistoric hotbed of massive, dramatic chimney spires venting chemical reactions that scientists have been studying for clues to how life on Earth (and other planets) began. —Bonnie Tsui, Time, 15 Sep. 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