# philosopher

Pronunciation: US say "fuh-LOS-uh-fur" /fəˈlɑsəfəɹ/; UK say "fi-LOS-uh-fuh" /fɪˈlɒs.ə.fə(ɹ)/

## Noun

1. A scholar or expert who takes part in or contributes to philosophical inquiry.
   - Simple: A person who studies big questions about life, knowledge, and what is right.
   - _The philosopher defended the view that consciousness cannot be reduced to brain states._
   - _Contemporary philosophers continue to debate the foundations of moral knowledge._
2. A person engaged in the study of philosophy.
   - Simple: Someone who studies philosophy, often at a school or college.
   - _As a philosopher in her first year, she struggled to follow the ancient arguments._
   - _The young philosophers met after class to argue over the day's lecture._
3. A person devoted to the love of wisdom.
   - Simple: A person who loves wisdom and wants to understand the world.
   - _He lived as a philosopher, less a teacher than a tireless seeker of wisdom._
   - _The ancients held that true philosophers loved wisdom for its own sake._

## Noun

4. A person who applies philosophical principles to daily life, staying calm and rational in the face of inevitable change. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A person who stays calm and reasonable when life brings changes they cannot stop.
   - _A true philosopher, he met the loss of his fortune without bitterness or complaint._
   - _She bore the grim news like a philosopher, composed and unshaken._
5. A student, scholar, or expert in any branch of knowledge, especially fields studied before they were regarded as pure science. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A person who studies any field of knowledge, especially older forms of science.
   - _The philosopher demonstrated that air had weight by filling glass vessels and weighing them with care._
   - _Across Europe, philosophers debated whether light traveled as waves or as particles._
6. A practitioner of alchemy. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Someone who tried to turn metals into gold and find magic cures.
   - _The philosopher labored over his furnace, hoping to turn lead into gold._
   - _Kings employed philosophers to brew elixirs and chase the secret of transmutation._

## Origin

It comes from Ancient Greek φιλόσοφος (philósophos), literally 'lover of wisdom', which is said to have been coined by Pythagoras to describe himself. The word passed through Latin philosophus and Anglo-Norman or Middle French philosophe into Middle English philosophre, replacing the native Old English ūþwita.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/philosopher (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).