Word.ws English Dictionary

hermeneut

UK/ˈhɜːmɪˌnjuːt/

hermeneut noun: a practitioner of hermeneutics, someone who interprets a text, especially a holy text.

Noun

hermeneut (plural hermeneuts)

  1. A practitioner of hermeneutics, someone who interprets a text, especially a holy text.
    • Moses, full of sacrificial institutes, is the text, Isaiah and all the prophets are the hermeneuts[…].1857 May 25, Professor Lumsden, “Conversion of the Jews”, in Proceedings of the Scotland Free Church General Assembly, page 46
    • He was a hermeneut who worked out striking interpretations of texts.1989, George H. Jensen, “Introduction”, in Post-Jungian Criticism, page 3
  2. (broadly) An interpreter of culture, experience, etc.
    • Oh, an ardent hermeneut might try to distinguish his or her own experience as more intensively "pop" than that of less authentic metaconsumers passing through Coke's world.1999, James A. Boon, Verging on Extra-vagance
    • In short, Hillman is not a hermeneut but an imagist, or phenomenologist, who sticks to the image, adheres to the phenomenon, and adamantly refuses to interpret it, or reduce it to a concept.2008, Michael Vannoy Adams, “The Archetypal School”, in Cambridge Companion to Jung, page 114

Synonyms of hermeneut

Forms of hermeneut

pluralhermeneuts
alternative formhermeneute

Origin of hermeneut

From Ancient Greek ἑρμηνευτής (hermēneutḗs, “interpreter”).

Questions about hermeneut

What does hermeneut mean?
Hermeneut means a practitioner of hermeneutics, someone who interprets a text, especially a holy text.
What part of speech is hermeneut?
Hermeneut is a noun.
How do you pronounce hermeneut?
Hermeneut is pronounced /ˈhɜːmɪˌnjuːt/ (UK).
What is the plural of hermeneut?
The plural of hermeneut is hermeneuts.

Words near hermeneut in the dictionary

  1. Hermathena
  2. hermatypic
  3. Hermean
  4. Hermenegild
  5. Hermenegildo
  6. hermeneut
  7. hermeneute
  8. hermeneutes
  9. hermeneutic
  10. hermeneutic circle
  11. hermeneutic circles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hermeneut (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.

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