rationalist

1. 1.

   someone who emphasizes observable facts and excludes metaphysical speculation about origins or ultimate causes

   Synonymspositivist

   Broadernonreligious person

   Narrowerlogical positivist

1. 1.

   of or relating to or characteristic of rationalism

   “rationalist philosophy”

Other forms of rationalist

plural

rationalists·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about rationalist

What does rationalist mean?

rationalist means "someone who emphasizes observable facts and excludes metaphysical speculation about origins or ultimate causes". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in rationalist?

rationalist has 5 syllables: ra-ti-o-na-list. The stress falls on "o".

What is another word for rationalist?

Close synonyms include positivist. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is rationalist a common word?

rationalist is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.