Socratically

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adverb

In a manner of Socratic irony, or with regards to Socrates.

Scrabble 19

Meanings

adverbSocratically (comparative more Socratically, superlative most Socratically)

comparative more Socratically · superlative most Socratically

  1. In a manner of Socratic irony, or with regards to Socrates.

    While this can be done didactically, it is usually more successful if the client is helped to check out the rationality of a belief Socrastically (i.e. through a series of leading questions) […]

    2008, Stephen Palmer, editor, Suicide: Strategies and interventions for reduction and prevention, London; New York: Routledge, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 162
    2 more examples

    Most teachers are currently trained to do only the didactic kind of teaching. A relatively small number have been given some competence in coaching the intellectual skills—largely in the language arts. Few, if any, have received training in the art of teaching Socratically, and the few who have the requisite skill exercise it not by curricular plan, but spontaneously, from natural gifts and propensities. They are the rare birds of the teaching profession currently constituted.

    1983, Mortimer J. Adler, Paideia Problems and Possibilities, New York; London: Macmillan Publishing Company; Collier Macmillan Publishers, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 19

    Baldwin's feelings were echoed by other teacher educators like J.W. Stearns of Wisconsin State University, who in an 1887 address argued that teaching Socratically “requires very great skill. . . not merely knowledge” […]

    2013 December, Jack Schneider, quoting J. W. Sterns, “Remembrance of Things Past: A History of the Socratic Method in the United States”, in Curriculum Inquiry, volume 43, number 5, →DOI, page 620

Origin

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

Socratically. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Socratically

MLA

“Socratically.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Socratically. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Socratically,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Socratically.

Source: Socratically on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.