Meanings
- The informal test of identifying something based on whether one intuitively feels it belongs to a certain category.
2012 The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe For example, astrology and phrenology were once considered sciences and only later were cast out as pseudoscientific, so they clearly at one time passed the Potter Stewart test.
2 more examples
2001 Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations It may not be easy to give a precise, categorical, practical definition of "doing justice to the past," but the concept passes the Potter Stewart test on pornography — we recognize it when we see it or fail to see it, or at least are convinced that we do.
2007 American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation While I continue to believe more in the Potter Stewart test, I thing Professor Feldman is to be commended for trying to impose some order on the chaos of religion and government, and I am grateful to him for discussing these issues with me
Synonyms: Potter Stewart standard
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounThe informal test of identifying something based on whether one intuitively feels it belongs to a certain category.
Origin
After Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who said "I know it when I see it" in regard to hardcore pornography.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Potter Stewart test. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Potter%20Stewart%20test
“Potter Stewart test.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Potter%20Stewart%20test. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Potter Stewart test,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Potter%20Stewart%20test.
Source: Potter Stewart test on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.