Contextualizebeta

devil's advocate

noun

Etymology

Calque of Latin advocātus diabolī (“the devil’s advocate”), a popular title given to the officer dealing with the canonization process in the 16th c.

  1. derived from advocātus diabolī — “the devil’s advocate”

Definitions

  1. One who debates from a viewpoint which one may not actually hold, usually to determine…

    One who debates from a viewpoint which one may not actually hold, usually to determine its validity or simply for the sake of argument.

    • I don't really believe all that – I was just playing devil's advocate.

  2. A canon lawyer appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization of the proposed…

    A canon lawyer appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization of the proposed candidate.

  3. To play devil's advocate.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for devil's advocate. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA