NATURALIST

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does naturalist mean? 

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

1. an advocate of the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms

2. a biologist knowledgeable about natural history (especially botany and zoology)

  Familiarity information: NATURALIST used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NATURALIST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An advocate of the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

philosopher (a specialist in philosophy)

Derivation:

naturalism ((philosophy) the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A biologist knowledgeable about natural history (especially botany and zoology)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

natural scientist; naturalist

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

biologist; life scientist ((biology) a scientist who studies living organisms)

Domain category:

zoological science; zoology (the branch of biology that studies animals)

botany; phytology (the branch of biology that studies plants)

Instance hyponyms:

Agassiz; Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz; Louis Agassiz (United States naturalist (born in Switzerland) who studied fossil fish; recognized geological evidence that ice ages had occurred in North America (1807-1873))

Andrews; Roy Chapman Andrews (United States naturalist who contributed to paleontology and geology (1884-1960))

Baron Georges Cuvier; Cuvier; Georges Cuvier; Georges Leopold Chretien Frederic Dagobert Cuvier (French naturalist known as the father of comparative anatomy (1769-1832))

Charles Darwin; Charles Robert Darwin; Darwin (English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882))

Gesner; Konrad von Gesner (Swiss naturalist who was one of the founders of modern zoology (1516-1565))

Hudson; W. H. Hudson; William Henry Hudson (English naturalist (born in Argentina) (1841-1922))

Baron Alexander von Humboldt; Baron Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt; Humboldt (German naturalist who explored Central and South America and provided a comprehensive description of the physical universe (1769-1859))

Chevalier de Lamarck; Jean Baptiste de Lamarck; Lamarck (French naturalist who proposed that evolution resulted from the inheritance of acquired characteristics (1744-1829))

John Muir; Muir (United States naturalist (born in England) who advocated the creation of national parks (1838-1914))

Lorenz Oken; Lorenz Okenfuss; Oken; Okenfuss (German naturalist whose speculations that plants and animals are made up of tiny living 'infusoria' led to the cell theory (1779-1851))

Georg Wilhelm Steller; Steller (German naturalist (1709-1746))

Jan Swammerdam; Swammerdam (Dutch naturalist and microscopist who proposed a classification of insects and who was among the first to recognize cells in animals and was the first to see red blood cells (1637-1680))

Alfred Russel Wallace; Wallace (English naturalist who formulated a concept of evolution that resembled Charles Darwin's (1823-1913))

 Context examples 

You will perceive that Mr. Percival Waldron, a naturalist of some popular repute, is announced to lecture at eight-thirty at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon 'The Record of the Ages.'

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some of them were discovered by English naturalist Charles Darwin.

(Researchers report rapid formation of new bird species in Galápagos islands, Wikinews)

For the highest clouds cannot rise above two miles, as naturalists agree, at least they were never known to do so in that country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It involved enlisting around a thousand screened volunteers — including snake-rescuers, naturalists and forestry workers — to upload photograph sightings of India’s four most medically important snakes, along with information such as location, time of day and weather.

(Snakebite resolution set for Health Assembly approval, SciDev.Net)

Sometimes they would fix upon my nose, or forehead, where they stung me to the quick, smelling very offensively; and I could easily trace that viscous matter, which, our naturalists tell us, enables those creatures to walk with their feet upwards upon a ceiling.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You are in a land which offers such an inducement to the ambitious naturalist as none ever has since the world began, and you suggest leaving it before we have acquired more than the most superficial knowledge of it or of its contents.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)