- a student, teacher, or devotee of philosophy
- a person of philosophical temperament, esp one who is patient, wise, and stoical
- (formerly) an alchemist or devotee of occult science
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
phi•los•o•pher /fɪˈlɑsəfɚ/USA pronunciation
n. [countable]
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- Philosophyone who offers views and theories on, or who thinks about, profound questions of right or wrong, the nature of existence, truth, and logic, and other related issues.
- Philosophyone who regulates or controls his or her life by philosophy.
- one who is calm or thinks before acting, esp. under difficult circumstances.
phi•los•o•pher
(fi los′ə fər),USA pronunciation n.
phi•los′o•pher•ship′, n.
- Philosophya person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields.
- Philosophya person who is deeply versed in philosophy.
- Philosophya person who establishes the central ideas of some movement, cult, etc.
- Philosophya person who regulates his or her life, actions, judgments, utterances, etc., by the light of philosophy or reason.
- a person who is rationally or sensibly calm, esp. under trying circumstances.
- [Obs.]an alchemist or occult scientist.
- Greek philósophos philosopher, equivalent. to philo- philo- + soph(ía) wisdom (see -sophy) + -os noun, nominal suffix
- Latin philosophus
- Latin philosophus); replacing Old English philosoph
- Anglo-French (Middle French philosophe
- Middle English, variant of philosophre bef. 900
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
philosopher /fɪˈlɒsəfə/ n
'philosopher' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Adorno
- Agnesi
- Albertus Magnus
- al-Farabi
- Althusser
- Anaxagoras
- Anaximander
- Anaximenes
- Anderson
- Antisthenes
- Arendt
- Aristippus
- Austin
- Averroës
- Avicenna
- Bacon
- Baconian
- Baumgarten
- Bayle
- Benda
- Berdyayev
- Berkeley
- Berlin
- Boethius
- Bonaventura
- Bradley
- Bruno
- Buber
- Campanella
- Carnap
- Cassirer
- Chu Xi
- Cleanthes
- Condillac
- Condorcet
- Confucius
- Cousin
- Croce
- Cudworth
- Cumberland
- Cyrenaic
- d'Alembert
- Dewey
- Diderot
- Dio Chrysostom
- Diogenes
- Eberhard
- Empedocles
- Epictetus
- Erigena