scientician
scientician noun: someone with the trappings of science who is probably not a true scientist.
Noun
scientician (plural scienticians)
- Someone with the trappings of science who is probably not a true scientist.
- Near-synonym: pseudoscientist
- Smarmy Marlboro Man–like spokesman: Just ask this scientician. [Cut away to a man in a lab coat, in front of a microscope, who opens his mouth as he is about to begin speaking. Then cut away again.] Smarmy Marlboro Man–like spokesman: He'll tell you that […]1995, David X. Cohen, “Lisa the Vegetarian”, in The Simpsons, season 7, episode 5
- Synonyms:
- pseudoscientist
- Synonym of scientist.
- Synonyms:
- scientist
Synonyms of scientician
Forms of scientician
| plural | scienticians |
|---|
Origin of scientician
The word has existed since the 19th century, when it began as a term for the concept that later would nearly universally be called scientist in English. But in the late 20th and early 21st century, the word has mostly been used as a joke implying suspect credentials or pseudoscience. The joke operates on the fact that scientist is the only current idiomatic term for a scientist and that scientician sounds like a word that a biased party (e.g., a corporate or government PR mouthpiece) would use while trying to mislead the audience while escaping liability because if it were questioned then they could lawyer their way out of liability technically by saying, "I never said scientist." This comic use of the word was popularized by a 1995 episode of The Simpsons called "Lisa the Vegetarian".
Questions about scientician
- What does scientician mean?
- Scientician means someone with the trappings of science who is probably not a true scientist.
- What part of speech is scientician?
- Scientician is a noun.
- What is the plural of scientician?
- The plural of scientician is scienticians.
Words near scientician in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scientician (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:
Cite this entry: “scientician.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scientician. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.