devil's advocate
devil's advocate noun: one who debates from a viewpoint which one may not actually hold, usually to determine its validity or simply for the sake of argument.
Noun
devil's advocate (plural devil's advocates)
- One who debates from a viewpoint which one may not actually hold, usually to determine its validity or simply for the sake of argument.
- I don't really believe all that – I was just playing devil's advocate.
- Now, play devil's advocate. Can't you live 20 years on $145,000 if you're living out of a motor home and just eating and painting and writing books? I mean, this is what we talked about when we were 19. Remember, we kept saying, "Let's find ourselves," but we didn't have a dollar! So, we watched...1985, Albert Brooks, Lost in America (motion picture), spoken by David Howard (Albert Brooks)
- A canon lawyer appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization of the proposed candidate.
Verb
devil's advocate (third-person singular simple present devil's advocates, present participle devil's advocating, simple past and past participle devil's advocated)
- To play devil's advocate.
- Disclaimer: people shouldn't take things I say too personally, I'm often a bit blunt and like to devil's advocate and debate things (another part of this is that I've typically not bothered to post on things that are correct, but to correct things when they're wrong... if you take everything I...2006 September 27, bwross, “Crawl-SS: Weapon & armor changes”, in rec.games.roguelike.misc (Usenet)
- I don't want to get bogged down devil's-advocating for a position I don't personally hold (I think a government worker should not be allowed to bring religious beliefs into the job, just to be clear), but her position is a little different than the absolute you're making it into.2008 May 20, Carl, “Woman: 'I can't go against what it says in the Bible'”, in alt.atheism (Usenet)
devil's advocate meaning in Tagalog and Arabic
devil's advocate in Tagalog
- debater
- sugo ng diyablo
- canon lawyer
- sugo ng diyablo
devil's advocate in Arabic
- debater
- مُحَامِي الشَّيْطَان muḥāmī š-šayṭān
Forms of devil's advocate
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | devil's advocates |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | devil's advocates |
| present participle | devil's advocating |
| past participle | devil's advocated |
| past | devil's advocated |
Origin of devil's advocate
Calque of Latin advocātus diabolī (“the devil’s advocate”), a popular title given to the officer dealing with the canonization process in the 16th c.
Questions about devil's advocate
- What does devil's advocate mean?
- Devil's advocate means one who debates from a viewpoint which one may not actually hold, usually to determine its validity or simply for the sake of argument.
- What is devil's advocate in Tagalog?
- Devil's advocate in Tagalog is sugo ng diyablo. See Devil's advocate meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is devil's advocate?
- Devil's advocate can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of devil's advocate?
- The plural of devil's advocate is devil's advocates.
Words near devil's advocate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: devil's advocate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-devil's advocate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “devil's advocate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/devil%27s_advocate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.