Thinker
noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 One who spends time thinking, contemplating or meditating.
"The doer and the thinker No allowance for the other."
- 2 an important intellectual wordnet
- 3 An intellectual, such as a philosopher or theologian.
"From his studies of these thinkers and activists, Mr. Obama took what he called the “Niebuhrian” lesson that we can have “a cleareyed view of the world and the realities of cruelty and sin and greed and violence, and yet, still maintain a sense of hope and possibility, as an act of will and leap of faith.”"
- 4 someone who exercises the mind (usually in an effort to reach a decision) wordnet
- 5 The brain; the mind. slang
""Well, I tried to do like you and grandfather say; don't use my thinker, use imagination.""
Show 1 more definition
- 6 A poser; a conundrum that requires some thinking. slang
"HANK: The NRA is a Washington D.C. based organization. Are you telling me you support Washington D.C.? DALE: That's a thinker."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Freud's insights into human behavior led to him being honored as a profound thinker."
Etymology
From Middle English thinkere, equivalent to think + -er. Compare West Frisian tinker (“thinker”), Dutch denker (“thinker”), German Denker (“thinker”), Danish tænker (“thinker”), Swedish tänkare (“thinker”).
Related phrases
More for "thinker"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.