Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person who is expert in or given to casuistry.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One versed in or using casuistry; one who studies and resolves cases of conscience, or nice points regarding conduct.
- n. Hence An over-subtle reasoner; a sophist.
- To play the part of a casuist.
Wiktionary
- n. A person who resolves cases of conscience or moral duty
- n. Someone who attempts to specify exact and precise rules for the direction of every circumstance of behavior
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who is skilled in, or given to, casuistry.
- v. To play the casuist.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone whose reasoning is subtle and often specious
Etymologies
- French casuiste, from Spanish casuista, from Latin cāsus, case; see case1.
Examples
“If the ascetic moralist was a quasi - mathematician, the casuist was a kind of medical man.”
“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?”
“The casuist may therefore cherry pick his route to his destination.”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“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...
“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.”
“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
““Prescribe the form of words we must lay hold of to achieve the object, and we will set to work, arch-casuist.””
“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:
“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.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘casuist’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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