Word.ws English Dictionary

scepticism

scepticism is the alternative spelling of skepticism.

Meaning of skepticism

Noun

skepticism (countable and uncountable, plural skepticisms)

  1. (US) The practice or philosophy of being a skeptic.
  2. (US) A studied attitude of questioning and doubt.
    • Ever since El Martinez started asking to be called by the gender-neutral pronouns “they/them” in the ninth grade, they have fielded skepticism in a variety of forms and from a multitude of sources about what it means to identify as nonbinary.2019 May 29, Amy Harmon, “Which Box Do You Check? Some States Are Offering a Nonbinary Option”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 08 Jun 2019
  3. (US) The doctrine that absolute knowledge is not possible.
  4. (US) A methodology that starts from a neutral standpoint and aims to acquire certainty through scientific or logical observation.
  5. (US) Doubt or disbelief of religious doctrines.

Forms of scepticism

pluralscepticisms

Origin of scepticism

Equivalent to sceptic + -ism.

Questions about scepticism

What is scepticism the alternative spelling of?
Scepticism is the alternative spelling of skepticism.

Words near scepticism in the dictionary

  1. scepticalness
  2. scepticise
  3. scepticised
  4. scepticises
  5. scepticising
  6. scepticism
  7. scepticisms
  8. scepticist
  9. scepticists
  10. scepticize
  11. scepticized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scepticism (page history and authors); skepticism (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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Cite this entry: “scepticism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scepticism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.