Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who has broad general knowledge and skills in several areas.
Wiktionary
- n. A person with a broad general knowledge, especially one with more than superficial knowledge in several areas and the ability to combine ideas from diverse fields.
- n. medicine A general practitioner.
- n. ecology Species which can thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a modern scholar who is in a position to acquire more than superficial knowledge about many different interests
Examples
“If you're down here as a smart college graduate looking for what I call a generalist job in a corporate training program, that's going to be harder to find," Hines said, adding that these positions could be created once the niche areas grow.”
“I am what you call a "generalist" - I can't do everything all on my own, but I "bring the pieces of the puzzle together" by "[advising website owners] on the breadth of challenges they face". at 4: 21 pm”
“I’d hoped they could match me up with a precog for the rest of my training, but Sandra was what was called a generalist.”
“They're a species we call a generalist, so they are able to exploit the habitats that are available, even in close proximity to humans. ”
“A synthesizing generalist, which is an apt description of most great for-profit investors, does not have the domain expertise to create social impact business models.”
Paul Brest: The Role of the Philanthropist: Evidence-Based Theories of Change, Round II
“That may be the first time I've ever been called a generalist without a sneer in the tone.”
A little jello wrestling, a little cheesecake, and, voila! Problem solved
“If, on the other hand, the firm wants to become a volume-driven player—that is, a generalist on the order of PaperMate, Bic, and Scripto—it must recognize that its effort to climb out of the ditch will be immediately opposed by the #3 incumbent, if not all the fullline generalists.”
“Jeremy is a self-professed creative generalist, which is kind of a bullshit way of saying”
“Here are the top five reasons why being a "jack of all trades," what I prefer to call a "generalist," is making a comeback:”
“Or can find enough in common between disciplines to make something like the JVWR and/or a "generalist" blog like this one make sense?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘generalist’.
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-alist
See the comments under alist for the origin of this list.
removalist, agriculturalist, constitutionalist, nationalist, colloquialist, maximalist, serialist, zimbalist, journalist, cruciverbalist, imperialist, industrialist and 88 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Words that describe me...
My Friends (that's my bets John McCain impression!)
This is a list of words that I think describe me. Would you be so kind as to vote for the 10 you think are most fitting? Your vote w...change, imagination, irreverent, creativity, generalist, strategic, simple, integrity, amuse, ideas, remarkable, lightning rod and 36 more...
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Dirty HR Words
Words I should never use on the job.
benefits, compensation, strategic, training, recruiting, human resources, staffing, selection, turnover, administer, regulation, osha and 31 more...
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Bionomenclature
phloem, lithops, ericaceous, albido, tarn, bosque, mirage, skerry, weir, kingfisher, effluvia, potherb and 48 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for generalist.
seanahan There used to be such a thing as a Renaissance Man, which was a revered title. Dec 27, 2007
sonofgroucho I absolutely agree with Prof Ortega y Gasset. As a general medical practitioner, it really annoys me that specialists of one sort or another are afforded greater respect than are GPs.
In my opinion, it requires much more effort to maintain your skills as a generalist and with the increasing complexity of medicine there is a greater and greater requirement for non-specialists to give balanced advice to patients.
Rant over. Dec 27, 2007
mollusque Since our society respects specialists and suspects generalists, perhaps the way to solve the shortage of generalists is by creating a new specialty in synthesis and systems. The concept was described by the noted philosopher and essayist José Ortega y Gasset (who was also, for more than a quarter of a century, a professor of metaphysics at Central University of Madrid). He said, "The need to create sound synthesis and systemization of knowledge ... will call out a kind of scientific genius which hitherto has existed only as an aberration: the genius of integration. Of necessity, this means specialization, as all creative effort does, but this time, the person will be specializing in the construction of the whole."
--Vartan Gregorian, 2004 Dec 27, 2007
sonofgroucho Specialists are so over-rated. Dec 26, 2007