scientist
noun
Simple meaning
One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
syuhntistSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsaɪəntɪst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research, or make use of the results of the research of others.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research, or make use of the results of the research of others.
Used this way, scientist is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in science and academic writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use scientist
- “The scientist conducted experiments to understand the universe better.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A new religion founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1955 and characterized by a belief in the power of a person's spirit to clear itself of past painful experiences through self-knowledge and…
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A member of the Protestant church founded in the United States by Mary Baker Eddy.
Protestant denomination founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866.
A scientist who studies cognitive processes.
A scientist who specializes in the theory of computation and the design of computers.
A scientist who studies living organisms.
A specialist in linguistics.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An instrument used by scientists.
A cognitive scientist who studies the neurophysiological foundations of mental phenomena.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- laboratorynoun
- researchernoun
- inventornoun
- sciencenoun
- computationaladjective
- physicistnoun
- astronomynoun
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.