SCEPTIC

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sceptic mean? 

• SCEPTIC (noun)
  The noun SCEPTIC has 1 sense:

1. someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs

  Familiarity information: SCEPTIC used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SCEPTIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

doubter; sceptic; skeptic

Hypernyms ("sceptic" is a kind of...):

intellect; intellectual (a person who uses the mind creatively)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sceptic"):

doubting Thomas (someone who demands physical evidence in order to be convinced (especially when this demand is out of place))

pessimist (a person who expects the worst)

Derivation:

sceptical (denying or questioning the tenets of especially a religion)

sceptical (marked by or given to doubt)

 Context examples 

“I am afraid that I am still a sceptic,” he said.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Little sceptic, you shall be convinced.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I admit that at the first I was sceptic.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of her husband's voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the Dead.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)