What does "hermeneut" mean?

A practitioner of hermeneutics: someone who interprets a text, especially a holy text.

What is a synonym for "hermeneut"?

Common synonyms include: commentator, critic, cryptologist, demonstrator, editor, exegete.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A practitioner of hermeneutics: someone who interprets a text, especially a holy text.
"Moses, full of sacrificial institutes, is the text, Isaiah and all the prophets are the hermeneuts[…]."
2
An interpreter of culture, experience, etc. broadly
"Oh, an ardent hermeneut might try to distinguish his or her own experience as more intensively "pop" than that of less authentic metaconsumers passing through Coke's world."

"Moses, full of sacrificial institutes, is the text, Isaiah and all the prophets are the hermeneuts[…]."

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἑρμηνευτής (hermēneutḗs, “interpreter”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.