[‘ A person of great or varied learning; a great scholar.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌpɒlɪˈhɪstə/, U.S. /ˌpɑliˈhɪstər/
Forms: 15 *polihistor*, 16– *polyhistor*.
Etymology: < classical Latin /polyhistōr/ very learned (Pliny) and its etymon Hellenistic Greek /πολυΐστωρ/ < ancient Greek /πολυ-* poly- comb. form + /ἵστωρ* learned (see history n.).
The classical Latin word was used exclusively, and the Greek word frequently, of Alexander Polyhistor (see polyhistorian n.).
A person of great or varied learning; a great scholar.
[1573–80 G. Harvey /Let.-bk./ 166 He hath bene countid heer..a πολυΐστωρ, and in deed is so commonly termid amongst us.]
1588 J. Harvey /Discoursiue Probl. conc. Prophesies/ 63 In poets, philosophers, polihistors, antiquaries, philologers, schoolemen, and other learned discoursers.
1621 R. Montagu /Diatribæ Hist. Tithes/ 453 So great a polyhistor as Ioseph Scaliger.
1788 H. Fuseli tr. J. C. Lavater /Aphorisms on Man/ 177 Who knows this, knows more than a thousand polyhistors.
1823 T. De Quincey /Lett. Young Man/ in /London Mag./ Jan. 87/2 He designed to make himself..a Polyhistor, or Catholic student.
1885 D. Masson /Carlyle/ ii. 63 Himself a polyhistor or accomplished universal scholar.
1938 S. Beckett /Murphy/ x. 196 A Hindu polyhistor of dubious caste.
1990 C. R. Johnson /Middle Passage/ (1991) iii. 53 Falcon, a polyhistor who spent twenty hours a week pouring over old tomes when the weather was fair.
Derivatives
polyhiˈstoric adj. of or relating to a polyhistor; widely erudite.
1878 C. T. Newton in /19th Cent./ Aug. 315 These votive inscriptions..became an object of interest to the polyhistoric students of the ancient world.
1926 /Science/ 29 Oct. 415/2 A book by the polyhistoric Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.
1999 /Renaissance Q./ *52* 358 This was precisely the enterprise..which would be taken up by the encyclopedic and polyhistoric scholars of the following century.
polyˈhistory n. [originally after German /Polyhistorei/, with derogatory connotations (1794 in the passage translated in quot. 1799 as Polyhistorey; compare Polyhistorie, with a more neutral sense (1744))] the character or quality of a polyhistor; wide or varied learning.
1799 P. Will tr. A. Knigge /Pract. Philos. Social Life/ II. xii. 173 The fatal polyhistory [Ger. /Polyhistorey/], the rage of being thought to know something of every thing.
1869 A. W. Ward tr. E. Curtius /Hist. Greece/ II. iii. iii. 509 Sophistry..thus necessarily led to a vain and superficial polyhistory, such as was most fully represented in the person of Hippias of Elis.
1996 /Afr. Amer. Rev./ *30* 672/2 Calhoun’s acquisition and dispensation of polyhistory derives from his rebirth experience with the Allmuseri.