Platonist

See also: platonist

English

Etymology

From Latin Platonista, from Plato + -ista, equivalent to Plato +‎ -ist.

Noun

Platonist (plural Platonists)

1. A member of the philosophical school of thought established by Plato; a believer in Platonism.
   • 1549, Hugh Latimer, The Seconde Sermon... Preached before the Kynges Maiestie:

     [St Augustine of Hippo] became of a Maniche, and of a platoniste a good christian.

2. One who holds similar beliefs, particularly that abstract ideas are real.
   • 1992 March 2, Richard Preston, “The Mountains of Pi”, in The New Yorker:

     I suspect that in their hearts most working mathematicians are Platonists, in that they take it as a matter of unassailable if unprovable fact that mathematical reality stands apart from the world, and is at least as real as the world, and possibly gives shape to the world, as Plato suggested.

3. (rare, obsolete) A platonic lover.

Derived terms

• Neoplatonist

Translations

follower of Plato; holder of similar ideas

• Czech: platonik m
• Finnish: platonikko
• Greek: please add this translation if you can
• Hungarian: please add this translation if you can
• Ido: Platonisto (io)
• Polish: platonik (pl) m, platończyk m
• Portuguese: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: плато́ник (ru) m (platónik)

References

• “Platonist, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.