Word.ws English Dictionary

Humean

/ˈhjuːmɪən/

Humean adjective: of or pertaining to the philosophy of David Hume (1711–1776).

Adjective

Humean (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to the philosophy of David Hume (1711–1776).
    • § Treatiſe of Human Nature, L. 467. In the P. S. to this letter, a view will be given of the Humian ſyſtem, taken exactly as it appeared to its author at ſix o’clock in the evening.1777, Robert Dick [ed.], The North-British Intelligencer, volume 5, “A Letter to Adam Smith, LL. D. on the Life, Death, and Philoſophy of his friend David Hume, Eſq.”, page 134, footnote §
    • Burke had planned a confutation of the Berkleian and Humean hypothesis; but the active engagements of politics afterwards prevented the completion of his speculative disquisitions.1798, Robert Bisset, The Life of Edmund Burke, page 22

Noun

Humean (plural Humeans)

  1. An adherent or advocate of Humean doctrines.
    • [H]e who would educate a young man in the principles of Unitarianism will, in all probability, educate him in the principles of infidelity. The reason is obvious. In order to reduce his religious creed to the level of Unitarianism, he must educate him in that “freedom of inquiry,” which teaches him...1815 June, The British Critic, volume 3, article VI: book review of Thomas Belsham’s 1815 “Letters addressed to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of London, in Vindication of the Unitarians from the...
    • Humians see no necessary uniformity in phenomena because they expect some logical law to which uniformity may be referred.1879, George Croom Robertson [ed.], Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, volume IV, page 511

Forms of Humean

Adjective
alternative formHumean
alternative formHumeian
alternative formHumian
Noun
pluralHumeans

Origin of Humean

From Hume (“David Hume”) + -an.

Questions about Humean

What does Humean mean?
Humean means of or pertaining to the philosophy of David Hume (1711–1776).
What part of speech is Humean?
Humean can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce Humean?
Humean is pronounced /ˈhjuːmɪən/ (UK).

Words near Humean in the dictionary

  1. Hume's fork
  2. Hume's guillotine
  3. Hume's law
  4. Hume's leaf warbler
  5. Hume's leaf warblers
  6. Humean
  7. Humeanism
  8. Humeans
  9. humect
  10. humectant
  11. humectants

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Humean (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Humean.wav.

Cite this entry: “Humean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/humean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.