casuist
Americannoun
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an oversubtle or disingenuous reasoner, especially in questions of morality.
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a person who studies and resolves moral problems of judgment or conduct arising in specific situations.
noun
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a person, esp a theologian, who attempts to resolve moral dilemmas by the application of general rules and the careful distinction of special cases
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a person who is oversubtle in his or her analysis of fine distinctions; sophist
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of casuist
1600–10; < Spanish casuista < Latin cāsu ( s ) case 1 + -ista -ist
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.
In his "farce to make you sad" Ghelderode satirizes every brand of casuist who ever hoped to remold the world�and manages to reduce all of history to irony.
From Time Magazine Archive
Beneath the glamorous raiment one can also glimpse the wily casuist who accepts the flimsiest excuse for invading France and courts his future wife knowing he has already won her as a spoil of war.
From Time Magazine Archive
I feel only pity," concluded Stimson, "for the casuist who would dismiss the Nazi leaders because 'they were not warned it was a crime.'
From Time Magazine Archive
The boy's reason, for a moment, asserted its own majesty, at the broaching of this wild doctrine; and he returned an instant answer to the preacher which would have confounded a less practised casuist.
From Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Volume II (of 2) by Cooper, Thomas
"Here is the letter; and if I were as clever a casuist as Colonel Bramleigh thought me, I should perhaps know whether I have the right to read it or not."
From The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly by Lever, Charles James
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.
