| / English Dictionary |
SCEPTICAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Denying or questioning the tenets of especially a religion
Example:
a skeptical approach to the nature of miracles
Synonyms:
disbelieving; sceptical; skeptical; unbelieving
Classified under:
Similar:
incredulous (not disposed or willing to believe; unbelieving)
Derivation:
sceptic (someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs)
scepticism (the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Marked by or given to doubt
Example:
a skeptical listener
Synonyms:
doubting; questioning; sceptical; skeptical
Classified under:
Similar:
distrustful (having or showing distrust)
Derivation:
sceptic (someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs)
scepticism (the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge)
Context examples:
He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:—I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the Professor's cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his thin face as he listened.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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