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Vinony

empiric

adjective

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L336428 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ɛmˈpɪɹɪk/ / /ɪmˈpɪɹɪk/

adj

Etymology: From Old French empirique, from Latin empiricus, from Ancient Greek ἐμπειρικός (empeirikós, “experienced”), from ἐμπειρία (empeiría, “experience, mere experience or practice without knowledge, especially in medicine, empiricism”), from ἔμπειρος (émpeiros, “experienced or practised in”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + πεῖρα (peîra, “a trial, experiment, attempt”). Not related to empire.

  1. Empirical.

noun

Etymology: From Old French empirique, from Latin empiricus, from Ancient Greek ἐμπειρικός (empeirikós, “experienced”), from ἐμπειρία (empeiría, “experience, mere experience or practice without knowledge, especially in medicine, empiricism”), from ἔμπειρος (émpeiros, “experienced or practised in”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + πεῖρα (peîra, “a trial, experiment, attempt”). Not related to empire.

  1. A member of a sect of ancient physicians who based their theories solely on experience.
  2. Someone who is guided by empiricism; an empiricist.
  3. Any unqualified or dishonest practitioner; a charlatan; a quack.

    “An empiric oftentimes, and a silly chirurgeon, doth more strange cures than a rational physician.”

    “[…] Paracelsus and some few other sooty Empiricks, rather then (as they are fain to call themselves) Philosophers, having their eyes darken'd, and their Brains troubl'd with the smoke of their own Furnaces, began to rail at the Peripatetick Doctrine, which they were too illiterate to understand […]”