Mathematician

How to spell mathematician

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce mathematician

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mathematician mean?

1. nounA person who is an expert in or specialises in mathematics.

Mathematician in a sentence

• The bank hired a mathematician to model its lending risk.

• As a research mathematician, she published several papers on prime numbers.

Where does mathematician come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek mathema, meaning 'that which is learned' or 'knowledge', which came from the verb manthanein, 'to learn'. From this the Greeks formed mathematikos, meaning 'fond of learning' and later specifically 'relating to the science of number and measurement', since mathematics was treated as the highest form of learning. The term passed into Latin as mathematicus and then through Old French into English in the late 1400s. The everyday English word 'mathematics' shares this same root, and the awkward stretch of unstressed vowels in the middle (the -emati- section) is exactly where adult spellers stumble. The ending was reshaped to -ician, the suffix English uses for practitioners of a discipline, as in physician and musician.

How the word is built

• mathemat- (from Greek mathema: learning, knowledge)
• -ician (one skilled in)