What does "philosophe" mean?

Any of the leading philosophers or intellectuals of the 18th-century French Enlightenment.

What is a synonym for "philosophe"?

Common synonyms include: academician, classicist, clerk, genius, humanist, learned man.

Pronounced //ˌfɪl.əˈzɒf//.

//ˌfɪl.əˈzɒf// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Any of the leading philosophers or intellectuals of the 18th-century French Enlightenment.
2
An incompetent philosopher; a philosophaster. derogatory
"Dynes, good superannuated philosophe that he is, is as anti-clerical as he is "rationalist," but he surely shouldn't be taken seriously here."

"Dynes, good superannuated philosophe that he is, is as anti-clerical as he is "rationalist," but he surely shouldn't be taken seriously here."

Borrowed from French philosophe (“philosopher”).

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