physicist
Americannoun
-
physicists
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of physicist
Explanation
A physicist is a scientist who studies and is trained in physics, which is the study of nature, especially how matter and energy behave. Do you ever wonder how things work? If you're interested in what makes magnets attract iron or what's happening in atoms, then maybe you should become a physicist. Physicists study physics, which is related to the word physical. Physicists are interested in everything that physically exists, from tiny gadgets to massive stars. It takes many years of school to become a physicist, and physicists work on complex projects such as space travel and new energy sources.
Vocabulary lists containing physicist
Albert Einstein
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Bomb
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Shtilierman, an engineer and physicist more comfortable tinkering with prototypes than managing personnel and production chains, had known Terekh for several years and valued her business acumen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
"I've got about a two-thirds success rate," said the solar physicist at University College London.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
Not long before McCarthy’s speech, the purported Russian spy Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury and atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs was unmasked as a Russian spy embedded in the Los Alamos atomic bomb laboratory.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
"One of them was named after a famous Indian physicist, so I would say I'm not racist."
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Now, meeting Lawrence in person for the first time, he found himself agreeing with Loomis that the Berkeley physicist should be part of the effort.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Meanwhile, at the Ron Cooke Hub at the University of York, physicists gathered to view the eclipse through five telescopes set up to see the Sun safely.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, told the BBC: "Eminent physicists have made the case for why this is particularly worrying, because it will lose physics talent across the country."
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
The physicists liked physical models, and economists liked linear models, so machine learning didn’t fit cleanly into either camp and was viewed with suspicion.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
Erich Mendelsohn, the young architect, was a member of Munich’s artistic avant-garde, while Erwin Finlay Freundlich, one of the first German physicists to endorse the theory of relativity, belonged to the scientific avant-garde.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
But other physicists propose that two alternative histories, two equally valid realities, could exist side by side—the one you know and the one in which you were never born.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
