Crossword clues for polymath
polymath
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1620s, from Greek polymathes "having learned much, knowing much," from polys "much" (see poly-) + root of manthanein "to learn" (see mathematic).
Wiktionary
n. A person with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge.
WordNet
n. a person of great and varied learning
Wikipedia
A polymath (, , "having learned much") is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century; the related term, polyhistor, is an ancient term with similar meaning.
The term is often used to describe great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment who excelled at several fields in science and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), in the statement that "a man can do all things if he will". Embodying a basic tenet of Renaissance humanism that humans are limitless in their capacity for development, the concept led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. This was expressed in the term "Renaissance man" which is often applied to the gifted people of that age who sought to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, and physical. This term entered the lexicon during the twentieth century and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance.
Polymath is a science fiction novel by John Brunner, first published in 1974 by DAW Books, an expansion of Castaways' World (Ace 1963).
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas.
Polymath may also refer to:
- Polymath (novel), 1974 novel by John Brunner
- Polymath Park, resort in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, USA
- Polymath Project, a particular collaborative mathematics project
Usage examples of "polymath".
Jefferson was a polymath, an autodidact, a nerd literally without peer.
Persian polymath Ibn Sina, famous in Christendom as Avicenna, and through him the learning of the Greeks, by which was meant Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists.
I beavered away at that encyclopaedia with a tenacity that I wish I possessed now, and if I did not become a complete polymath I certainly gained enough information to be a nuisance to everybody who knew me.
Jericho has altered little since the events described in these chapters, although the curious visitor will no longer find Canal Reach marked upon the street map, for the site of the narrow little lane in which Ms Scott and Mr Jackson met their deaths is now straddled by a new block of flats, in which Mrs Purvis (together with Graymalkin) is happily resettled, and where one of her neighbours is the polymath who once regaled Morse on the history of Jericho and who is now a mature student reading Environmental Studies at London University.
A total polymath of original concepts in architecture, hydraulics, mechanics, astronomy, geology, anatomy, military and naval engineering, mapmaking, design of harbors and other works.
Political advisers were sometimes the brightest of bright graduates, multilingual polymaths who could quote Groucho as readily as Karl Marx.
Crake was very smart – even in the world of HelthWyzer High, with its overstock of borderline geniuses and polymaths, he had no trouble floating at the top of the list.