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skeptical

adjectiveattested in dialogue

  • //ˈskɛptɪkəl//

Having, or expressing doubt; questioning.

adjective

  1. 1

    Having, or expressing doubt; questioning.

    My teacher was skeptical when I told her my dog ate my homework.

    Tom was skeptical when Paul told him that he saw Bigfoot.

    I can see why people are so skeptical [sic] about him, but I think he's on to something here.

    Numerous experimental tests and other observations have been offered in favor of animal mind reading, and although many scientists are skeptical, others assert that humans are not the only species capable of representing what others do and don’t perceive and know.

  2. 2

    Of or relating to philosophical skepticism or the skeptics.

Etymology

From Latin scepticus + -al; attested earlier than skeptic. By surface analysis, skeptic + -al.

Forms

comparative
more skeptical
superlative
most skeptical
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).