Physicist

How to spell physicist

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce physicist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does physicist mean?

1. nounA scientist who studies matter, energy, and the fundamental forces of nature.

Physicist in a sentence

• The physicist explained how the new particle was detected at the laboratory.

• As a theoretical physicist, she spent her days working through equations rather than running experiments.

Where does physicist come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the ancient Greek physis, meaning 'nature' or 'the natural world', from which came physikos, an adjective meaning 'natural' or 'concerning nature'. Latin took it up as physica, the study of the natural world, and medieval English borrowed 'physic' to mean both natural science and, curiously, medicine, which is why an old word for a doctor was a 'physician'. The specific term 'physicist', for someone who studies matter, energy, and the forces of nature, was coined in English in the early nineteenth century by adding the agent suffix -ist to the root of 'physics'. The spelling trap lives in the middle and end: two separate s-sounds spelled with a 'c' then an 's' (physi-c-ist), echoing the same shift you see in 'physics' itself.

How the word is built

• physic- (from Greek physis: nature)
• -ist (one who practises or specialises)