a. and sb. [ad. med.L. acadēmic-us, Fr. académique.]

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  A.  adj.

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  1.  Belonging to the Academy, the school or philosophy of Plato; skeptical.

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1610.  Healey, St. Aug., City of God (1620), XI. xxvi. 408. I fear not the Academike arguments … that say: what if you erre?

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1777.  Hume, Ess. & Treat., II. 134. The wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favours the passion of the reporter.

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1756.  Burke, Subl. & B., Pref., Wks. I. 87. Cicero true as he was to the academick philosophy.

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  2.  Of or belonging to an academy or institution for higher learning; hence, collegiate, scholarly.

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c. 1588.  Greene, Friar Bacon, ii. 6. Masters of our academic state That rule in Oxford.

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1599.  Bp. Hall, Virgidem, IV. vi. 83. Oh let me lead an academicke life.

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1633.  G. Herbert, Temple, 39, Affliction, 45. Thou often didst with Academick praise Melt and dissolve my rage.

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1750.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 163, ¶ 4. Which my academick rudeness made me unable to repay.

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1831.  Carlyle, Sart. Res. (1858), 17. It betokens in the Author a rusticity and academic seclusion.

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1875.  B. Taylor, Faust, II. i. II. 9. See hitherward your grateful scholar wending Outgrown the academic rods of old.

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  3.  Of or belonging to a learned society, or association for the promotion of art or science; of or belonging to an Academician.

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1879.  Daily Tel., May 23. Each successively forced the heavy portals of Somerset House and Trafalgar-square to … admit them … to Academic rank.

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  B.  sb. [The adj. used absol.]

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  1.  An ancient philosopher of the Academy, an adherent of the philosophical school of Plato; a Platonist.

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1586.  B[eard], trans. La Primaudaye’s Fr. Acad., 9. Plato, Xenophon … & manie other excellent personages, afterward called Academikes.

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1671.  Milton, P. R., IV. 277. Mellifluous streames that watered all the schools Of academics old and new.

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1751.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v. They who embraced the system of Plato, among the ancients, were called academici, Academics; whereas those who did the same since the restoration of learning, have assumed the denomination of Platonists.

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1830.  Sir J. Macintosh, Progr. of Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, I. 28. His [Cleanthes’] most formidable opponent, Arcesilaus the academic.

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  2.  A member of a college or university; a collegian.

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1587.  Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1379/1. At hir being in Cambridge … thus did an academike write in praise of the forenamed earle.

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1611.  Coryat, Crudities, 438. All the men generally doe weare it, both citizens and Academicks.

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1750.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 29, ¶ 13. The academick hopes to divert the ladies.

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1795.  Gibbon, Auto-Biog., 26. The uniform habit of the academics, the square cap and black gown.

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  b.  = ACADEMICAL B, which is the more usual term.

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1823.  Lockhart, Reg. Dalton (1842), 144. Dressed in the full academics of a gentleman Commoner—one of the most graceful, certainly, of all European costumes.

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  3.  A member of a society for promoting art or science; = ACADEMIST 2, ACADEMICIAN. rare.

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1751.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Academics or rather Academists is also used among us for the members of the modern Academies, or instituted societies of learned persons.

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1868.  Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 372. Like Coriolanus, the painter [Sandys] might say … it is his to banish the judges, his to reject the ‘Common cry’ of academics.

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  4.  pl. Academics, Eng. name of the Academica, one of the writings of Cicero.

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