Etymology

skeptic

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Today it means: Someone who doubts beliefs, claims, plans, etc. that are accepted by others as true or appropriate, especially one who habitually does so. Full definition →

Middle French sceptique ← Late Latin scepticus ← Proto-Italic *spektos
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The story

  1. Proto-Italic · derived from*spektos“see, observing”
  2. Late Latin · borrowed fromscepticus
  3. Middle French · borrowed fromsceptique
  4. English todayskeptic

Borrowed from Middle French sceptique (but with a pronunciation closer to that of the Latin etymon), or possibly directly from Late Latin scepticus (originally attested only in the plural Scepticī (“the sect of Skeptics”)), from Proto-Italic *spektos (“see, observing”), from *speḱ- (“to see”), compare to σκοπέω (skopéō, “to view, examine”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.