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scepticism

[skep-tuh-siz-uh m]
noun
  1. skepticism.
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Related formsan·ti·scep·ti·cism, nouno·ver·scep·ti·cism, noun

skepticism

or scep·ti·cism

[skep-tuh-siz-uhm]
noun
  1. skeptical attitude or temper; doubt.
  2. doubt or unbelief with regard to a religion, especially Christianity.
  3. (initial capital letter) the doctrines or opinions of philosophical Skeptics; universal doubt.
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Origin of skepticism

1640–50; < New Latin scepticismus, equivalent to Latin sceptic(us) skeptic + -ismus -ism
Related formsan·ti·skep·ti·cism, noun

Synonyms

1. questioning, probing, testing. 2. disbelief, atheism, agnosticism.

Antonyms

2. faith.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for scepticism

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • Scepticism was not only in his conscious thought but in the very tissues of his mind.

    Dust

    Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

  • There is no scepticism among the labourers now, I assure you.

  • Let scepticism assert what it may, such is the nature of man.

  • He goes beyond facts in his scepticism, as they did in their idealism.

    Meno

    Plato

  • These are the sort of proofs that no scepticism is strong enough to resist.

    Tony Butler

    Charles James Lever

Word Origin and History for scepticism

skepticism

n.

also scepticism, 1640s, from skeptic + -ism. Specifically regarding Christian religion, from 1800.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
scepticism in Culture

skepticism

In philosophy, the position that what cannot be proved by reason should not be believed. One of the main tasks of epistemology is to find an answer to the charge of some extreme skeptics that no knowledge is possible.

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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.