AGNOSTIC

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does agnostic mean? 

• AGNOSTIC (noun)
  The noun AGNOSTIC has 2 senses:

1. someone who is doubtful or noncommittal about something

2. a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)

  Familiarity information: AGNOSTIC used as a noun is rare.

• AGNOSTIC (adjective)
  The adjective AGNOSTIC has 2 senses:

1. of or pertaining to an agnostic or agnosticism

2. uncertain of all claims to knowledge

  Familiarity information: AGNOSTIC used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AGNOSTIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who is doubtful or noncommittal about something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

agnostic; doubter

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

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Derivation:

agnostical (uncertain of all claims to knowledge)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

religious person (a person who manifests devotion to a deity)

Derivation:

agnostical (uncertain of all claims to knowledge)

• AGNOSTIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or pertaining to an agnostic or agnosticism

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

agnostic (a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist))

agnosticism (the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Uncertain of all claims to knowledge

Synonyms:

agnostic; agnostical

Similar:

nescient; unbelieving (holding that only material phenomena can be known and knowledge of spiritual matters or ultimate causes is impossible)

Antonym:

gnostic (possessing intellectual or esoteric knowledge of spiritual things)

 Context examples 

Then there was a black-eyed restaurant waiter who was a theosophist, a union baker who was an agnostic, an old man who baffled all of them with the strange philosophy that what is is right, and another old man who discoursed interminably about the cosmos and the father-atom and the mother-atom.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)