generalist

[ jen-er-uh-list ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

a person whose knowledge, aptitudes, and skills are applied to a field as a whole or to a variety of different fields ( specialist ).

generalist

/ ˈdʒɛnrə-; ˈdʒɛnərəlɪst /

1. a person who is knowledgeable in many fields of study
2. ( as modifier )
  a generalist profession
ecology an organism able to utilize many food sources and therefore able to flourish in many habitats Compare specialist

First recorded in 1605–15; general + -ist

Finally if there is anything left over we can explore the possibility of outsourcing the task to a specialist or generalist.

You could be a generalist—a poet/mollusk scientist/seafarer/surgeon.

Even more wistfully, he was a passionate generalist in a time in which our ideas and expertise have become more and more silo-ed.

He can do more for you and knows more of your case in five minutes' observation than the generalist would in three months.

What we have said about the specialist we could repeat by taking the opposite of the question for the generalist.

Woe to the specialist who is not a pretty fair generalist, and woe to the generalist who is not also a bit of a specialist.

Make the generalist think of himself in connection with large movements.

Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individual should be a generalist.

Browse