Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person who is expert in or given to casuistry.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To play the part of a casuist.
  • noun One versed in or using casuistry; one who studies and resolves cases of conscience, or nice points regarding conduct.
  • noun Hence An over-subtle reasoner; a sophist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To play the casuist.
  • noun One who is skilled in, or given to, casuistry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun ethics A person who resolves cases of conscience or moral duty.
  • noun Someone who attempts to specify exact and precise rules for the direction of every circumstance of behavior

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone whose reasoning is subtle and often specious

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French casuiste, from Spanish casuista, from Latin cāsus, case; see case.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Directly or via French casuiste, from Spanish casuista, from Latin casus ("case")

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Examples

  • If the ascetic moralist was a quasi - mathematician, the casuist was a kind of medical man.

    CASUISTRY WERNER STARK 1968

  • "But tell me, Tribune, you who are a notable casuist, which is the best for a state -- that its governor should be over-thrifty or over-lavish?"

    Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • Ugh. Singly it's not the worst of qualities a lawyerly type and casuist might bring to bear, but given the use it's put to it's positively insufferable.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • Most valuably, Mr. Colucci shows Justice Kennedy's judicial philosophy to be a deeply rooted one and not, as one might suspect, the result of varied decisions that require a casuist or law professor to make coherent.

    The Decider 2009

  • The casuist may therefore cherry pick his route to his destination.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • Tolstoy was often a rather wild thinker, a village explainer, an obtuse casuist; he filled his artistic works with his own woolly-minded theorizing.

    Jim Windolf: A Q&A with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky Translator Richard Pevear: Jim Windolf Windolf, Jim 2008

  • That always was obvious enough but post-9/11 realities have made it stark, such that only the obdurately self-blinded and the gifted casuist can deny it.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » A Bit of Perspective on the Use of Feces and Toilets in Protests: 2007

  • “Prescribe the form of words we must lay hold of to achieve the object, and we will set to work, arch-casuist.”

    Symposium 2007

  • To be sure, Miss Rawlins learnedly said, playing with her fan, a casuist would give it, that the matrimonial vow ought to supercede any other obligation.

    Clarissa Harlowe 2006

  • Thou art, surely, casuist good enough to know, (what I have insisted upon* heretofore,) that the sin of seducing a credulous and easy girl, is as great as that of bringing to your lure an incredulous and watchful one.

    Clarissa Harlowe 2006

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