A pantomath is a person who wants to know or knows everything. The word itself is not to be found in common online English dictionaries, the ''

OED The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'', dictionaries of obscure words, or dictionaries of

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

s. Logic dictates that there are no literal nonfictional pantomaths, but the word pantomath seems to have been used to imply a

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

in a superlative sense, a ''

ne plus ultra NE, Ne or ne may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Neutral Evil, an alignment in the American role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' * New Edition, an American vocal group * Nicomachean Ethics, a collection of ten books by Greek philosopher A ...

'' ("nothing more beyond") as it were, one who satisfies requirements even stricter than those to be applied to the polymath. In theory, a pantomath is not to be confused with a polymath in its less strict sense, much less with the related but very different terms

philomath A philomath () is a lover of learning and studying. The term is from Greek (; "beloved", "loving", as in philosophy or philanthropy) and , (, ; "to learn", as in polymath). Philomathy is similar to, but distinguished from, philosophy in that ...

and

know-it-all ''Know-It-All'' is the debut studio album by Canadian singer and songwriter Alessia Cara. It was released on November 13, 2015 through Def Jam Recordings. The album followed the release of her debut extended play (EP) '' Four Pink Walls'' (2015), ...

Etymology

A pantomath (''pantomathēs'', παντομαθής, meaning "having learnt all", from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

roots παντ- "all", "every" and the root μαθ-, meaning "learning", "understanding") is a person whose astonishingly wide interests and knowledge span the entire range of the arts and sciences.

Uses

Pantomath is typically used to convey the sense that a great individual has achieved a pinnacle of learning, that an "automath" has taken

autodidacticism Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are indivi ...

to an endpoint. As an example, the obscure and rare term seems to have been applied to those with an astonishingly wide knowledge and interests by these two authors from different eras:

Jonathan Miller Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 1 ...

has been called a pantomath, as has

Rupert Hart-Davis Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his ''Hugh Walpole'' (1952), as an editor, f ...

.Lyttleton Letters Annos I
/ref>

Notes

External links

* Excerpts from a discussion of the word at Wordsmith.org: *
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* Wikipedia Knowledge Greek words and phrases

Etymology

Uses

See also

Notes

External links

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