mathematician
Americannoun
-
mathematicians
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mathematician
First recorded in 1400–50, mathematician is from the late Middle English word mathematicion. See mathematics, -ian
Explanation
Use the noun mathematician when you talk about someone who is highly educated in — and good at — math. Your math teacher might be a great mathematician who's also gifted at explaining math to students. You can call a person who does math for a living a mathematician, like a math professor or someone who works in statistics or as an actuary. Actually, anyone who has great skill at mathematics is also a mathematician, even if they work as a chef or a taxi driver. The word mathematician is rooted in the Greek mathematikos, which means "relating to mathematics, or scientific," or simply "disposed to learn."
Vocabulary lists containing mathematician
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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:
The Hindenburg Omen was developed by Jim Miekka, a mathematician and market analyst, back in 1995.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026
Depicted in the Oscar-winning film "The Imitation Game", Bletchley Park, north of London, was a country house where mathematician Alan Turing cracked the code on encrypted Nazi messages.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
In 1900, German mathematician David Hilbert asked what would become known as Hilbert's Sixth Problem, how the behaviour of a whole can be calculated based on the movement of individual particles.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
The research was led by Professor Ginestra Bianconi, a mathematician at Queen Mary University of London.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
As the work began, I kept spotting people I knew of from Cambridge—the classics scholar Dilly Knox, the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
For decades, mathematicians have tried to prove the Riemann hypothesis, which says that 100% of the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function fall on a single vertical line.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
What this means for the future of mathematics – and human mathematicians – remains to be seen.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
This is just the latest of many striking mathematical breakthroughs made by mathematicians working with large language models.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
They’re also proof that pure mathematicians have a role to play in taming the mightiest and riskiest technology of our time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
It was a specimen impaled on a pin, ready for study, and mathematicians were quick to analyze it.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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.
