scientist
noun
scientist
American
[sahy-uhn-tist]
/ ˈsaɪ ən tɪst /
noun
-
scientists
plural
Scientist
1
British
/ ˈsaɪəntɪst /
noun
-
Christian Science Christ as supreme spiritual healer
-
short for Christian Scientist See Christian Scientist
scientist
2
British
/ ˈsaɪəntɪst /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of scientist
Explanation
A scientist is a person with some kind of knowledge or expertise in any of the sciences, like biology or chemistry. See that guy in the white lab coat wearing pocket protectors and experimenting with chemicals? He’s definitely a scientist. The word science comes from the Latin, scientia, which means "knowledge." The sciences are branches of knowledge about the world that derive from repeated experiments. A scientist is any person with an interest in the sciences, from amateurs to professionals. A curious high school student interested in seeing what happens when he slips vinegar into his best friend's can of soda could be considered a kind of scientist!
Vocabulary lists containing scientist
Occupations
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"Hitching a Ride"
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"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 4
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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 scientist believed that capturing the public's imagination would help attract financial backing.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Neither a scholar nor a scientist, someone like him shouldn’t be in charge of the future of humanity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Dr. Jamie McGowan, who was a postdoctoral scientist at the Earlham Institute, made the discovery while studying a protist collected from a pond at Oxford University Parks in England.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
For years the story of this maverick scientist was synonymous with ambitious British failure.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Mrs. B’s words might have been blunt, but she hadn’t said it like the way I always called Tamika an annoying evil scientist.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
The PAC had received a $150,000 donation from a newly created LLC with a typo in its name: the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers, with no S at the end of “Scientist.”
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
In another blog post on Monday, Altman and Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki said OpenAI is currently building an automated AI researcher.
From Barron's ● Jun. 8, 2026
"This spring highlights both the natural variability of the UK's weather and the longer-term warming we are observing," Met Office Scientist Dr Emily Carlisle said.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
Appeared in the May 30, 2026, print edition as 'Donald Trump, Climate Scientist'.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
I’d been in the middle of dreaming that I’d won the title of All-Time Greatest Scientist after discovering the first wormhole.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
These models more closely reproduced important features of the disorder, giving scientists a way to investigate potential treatments before testing them in people.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
The scientists therefore concentrated their detailed analysis on that embryo.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
The finding illustrates how scientists can now investigate the earliest stages of development with a level of detail that was previously difficult to achieve.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
With their simulated loop in place, the scientists examined how a matter particle moved between locations through a process known as quantum tunneling.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
When the M. leprae bacteria became resistant to dapsone in the 1960s, scientists developed a new multidrug regimen, which included dapsone alongside other drugs.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
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.
