Faith & RitualGreek → English
Agnostic
/æɡˈnɒstɪk/noun
A person who holds that whether any god exists is unknown, and probably unknowable.
The Greek roots
ἀ-
a-
without, not
γνωστός
gnōstós
known, knowable
Literally: “not knowing”
The story of the word
Thomas Huxley invented the word around 1869 for the Metaphysical Society, tired of sitting in a room where every other man had a label for his certainty. He said he took it from the altar Paul found in Athens, inscribed to an unknown god. The claim is about knowledge rather than belief, which is why agnostic and atheist are not two rungs of one ladder, and why software can be described as platform-agnostic without any theology involved.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English coinage
- First recorded
- 1869
Same family
gnosticdiagnosisprognosisphysiognomy
In a sentence
He was raised in the church and describes himself now as a cheerful agnostic.
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