as in secular
not having or showing conviction about the existence of God
As she grew older, she began to question the religious teachings of her youth and became more agnostic.
Related Words
Relevance
Dissimilar Words
as in skeptic
a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not
He was an agnostic despite his religious upbringing.
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of agnostic
Jijo Malayil, Interesting Engineering, 27 May 2026
The company has internal competitions with LLM-agnostic tools as well.
—James Manso, Footwear News, 26 May 2026
Aja Romano, Vox, 8 July 2025
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris, conversely, had significant majority support from Black protestants (85 percent), Jewish voters (65 percent), Hispanic Catholics (65 percent), agnostics (78 percent) and atheists (85 percent).
—Nicholas Creel, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for agnostic
Adjective
According to the team, the result positions Argus as an early demonstration of a wider class of robots built not around biological imitation, but around a fundamental principle of balanced, direction-agnostic performance.
—Jijo Malayil, Interesting Engineering, 27 May 2026
The company has internal competitions with LLM-agnostic tools as well.
—James Manso, Footwear News, 26 May 2026
Noun
But that subgenre is far from the only religiously tinged music — created by everyone from devout evangelicals to open agnostics, from country artists to rappers — climbing the charts today; a number of pop songs are likewise courting the divine.
—Aja Romano, Vox, 8 July 2025
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris, conversely, had significant majority support from Black protestants (85 percent), Jewish voters (65 percent), Hispanic Catholics (65 percent), agnostics (78 percent) and atheists (85 percent).
—Nicholas Creel, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for agnostic
Recent Examples of Synonyms for agnostic
Adjective
-
Its secular cast was not its only imprint.—
Adam Gopnik,
New Yorker,
8 June 2026
-
At least, not according to received wisdom in the secular twenty-first-century West.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
3 June 2026
Noun
-
Converting aerospace skeptics For investors, Honeywell Aerospace represents a pure play on the growth of commercial aviation and the defense industry.—
Phil LeBeau,Meghan Reeder,
CNBC,
3 June 2026
-
David Ellison, chief executive of CBS News parent Paramount, brought in Weiss — a skeptic of legacy media — with a mandate to move the division more to the political center.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
1 June 2026
Adjective
-
His father's death during World War II influenced his pursuit of the ministry even amid the officially atheistic communist regime of the Soviet Union, according to his obituary on the OCU website.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
20 Mar. 2026
-
But there has been a recent rise in secular congregations that explicitly mimic religious organizations and rituals to celebrate atheistic worldviews.—
Jacqui Frost,
The Conversation,
11 Jan. 2024
Adjective
-
But it's also made people even more skeptical of public figures whose appearances seem naturally frozen in time.—
Charles Trepany,
USA Today,
29 May 2026
-
Many consumers are wary, skeptical, and even disgusted by AI content in ads.—
Melissa A. Wheeler,
Forbes.com,
28 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Agnostic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/agnostic. Accessed 10 Jun. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
