Polymath

//ˈpɒlɪmæθ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge.

    "To be thought and held Polumathes and Polihistors."

  2. 2
    a person of great and varied learning wordnet

Example

More examples

"A polymath is someone who knows a whole lot about a whole lot."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πολυμαθής (polumathḗs, “having learnt much”), first attested in 1624. From πολύς (polús, “much”) (for more, see poly-) + μανθάνω (manthánō, “to learn”). Compare opsimath, philomath, polyhistor, polymathic, polymathist, and polymathy.

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