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.
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
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
The legal is the older group, and to it the name of casuist is often exclusively reserved, generally with the implication that its methods are too purely technical to commend themselves to mankind at large.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 4 "Carnegie Andrew" to "Casus Belli" by Various
"Except when it's a case of selling patent medicines, I'm not a casuist."
From A Prairie Courtship by Bindloss, Harold
That was spoken like Daniel Webster, the able jurist, and just man, and not like the Daniel Webster, whom I have before quoted, in these pages, as the casuist, and the sophist.
From Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States by Semmes, Raphael
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.
