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
Recent examples include OpenAI’s disproof of the unit distance conjecture, and the proof of Erdős’ problem 1196 by Liam Price, a 23-year-old amateur mathematician.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 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
But anyone who has ever met a philosopher or mathematician knows they are not primarily driven by money.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
I even did the 1 created by a mathematician from Finland.
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
OpenAI said Tuesday that one of its unreleased artificial intelligence models had solved a mathematical puzzle that has eluded mathematicians for generations, in a claim which also drew a fight with rival researchers over credit.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
The race to solve a Millennium Prize Problem had become so ferociously competitive that OpenAI’s researchers did not circulate the results with outside mathematicians before publication.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 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
What this means for the future of mathematics – and human mathematicians – remains to be seen.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
This is the tangent, and mathematicians realized that it is extremely important in studying motion.
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.
