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agnostic - 5 dictionary results
ag⋅nos⋅tic
[ag-nos-tik] 
tɪk
–noun
| 1. | a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience. |
| 2. | a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study. |
–adjective
| 3. | of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism. |
| 4. | asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge. |
skein
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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|
Link To agnostic
| ag·nos·tic (āg-nŏs'tĭk) n.
[a-1 + Gnostic.] ag·nos'ti·cal·ly adv. Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning "without, not," as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnōsis, "knowledge," which was used by early Christian writers to mean "higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things"; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as "Gnostics" a group of his fellow intellectuals—"ists," as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a "man without a rag of a label to cover himself with," Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Agnostic
Ag*nos"tic\, a. [Gr. 'a priv. + ? knowing, ? to know.] Professing ignorance; involving no dogmatic; pertaining to or involving agnosticism. -- Ag*nos"tic*al*ly, adv.Agnostic
Ag*nos"tic\, n. One who professes ignorance, or denies that we have any knowledge, save of phenomena; one who supports agnosticism, neither affirming nor denying the existence of a personal Deity, a future life, etc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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agnostic
1870, "one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known." Coined by T.H. Huxley from Gk. agnostos "unknown, unknowable," from a- "not" + gnostos "(to be) known" (see gnostic). Sometimes said to be a reference to Paul's mention of the altar to "the Unknown God," but according to Huxley it was coined with ref. to the early Church movement known as Gnosticism (see Gnostic).
"I ... invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic,' ... antithetic to the 'Gnostic' of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant." [T.H. Huxley, "Science and Christian Tradition," 1889]The adj. is first recorded 1873.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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