empiric

Etymology

From Old French empirique, from Latin empiricus, from Ancient Greek ἐμπειρικός (empeirikós, “experienced”), from ἐμπειρία (empeiría, “experience, mere experience or practice without knowledge, especially in medicine, empiricism”), from ἔμπειρος (émpeiros, “experienced or practised in”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + πεῖρα (peîra, “a trial, experiment, attempt”). Not related to empire.

adj

1. Empirical.

noun

1. (historical) A member of a sect of ancient physicians who based their theories solely on experience.
2. Someone who is guided by empiricism; an empiricist.
3. Any unqualified or dishonest practitioner; a charlatan; a quack.
   An empiric oftentimes, and a silly chirurgeon, doth more strange cures than a rational physician. , New York Review, Books, 2001, p.257
   […] Paracelsus and some few other sooty Empiricks, rather then (as they are fain to call themselves) Philosophers, having their eyes darken'd, and their Brains troubl'd with the smoke of their own Furnaces, began to rail at the Peripatetick Doctrine, which they were too illiterate to understand […] 1661, Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, page 24
   The fact is, that since a good, sound, honest, efficient, automatic, nonmetallic currency and standard was tampered with in 1893, India has been a happy hunting-ground for any empiric who conjured with a new scheme of currency, no matter how fantastic. 1913 January, Moreton Frewen, “The Great Drain of Gold to India”, in The Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review Founded by James Knowles, volume LXXIII, number CCCCXXXI, New York, N.Y.: Leonard Scott Publication Co.; London: Spottiswoode & Co. Ltd., printers, →OCLC, page 59
   To the disgust of doctors, the royal family at Versailles allowed one Brun, a wandering empiric […], to administer a proprietary ‘sovereign remedy’ to the ailing monarch. 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 33