empiric

alternative obsolete empirick

1. Empirical.

plural empirics · alternative obsolete empirick

1. historicalA member of a sect of ancient physicians who based their theories solely on experience.
2. Someone who is guided by empiricism; an empiricist.
3. Any unqualified or dishonest practitioner; a charlatan; a quack.

   An empiric oftentimes, and a silly chirurgeon, doth more strange cures than a rational physician.

   1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York: New York Review Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 257

   4 more examples

   […] Paracelsus and some few other sooty Empiricks, rather then (as they are fain to call themselves) Philosophers, having their eyes darken'd, and their Brains troubl'd with the smoke of their own Furnaces, began to rail at the Peripatetick Doctrine, which they were too illiterate to understand […]

   1661, Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, page 24

   […] and must therefore swallow down Opinions, as silly People do Empiricks['] Pills, without knowing what they are made of[…]

   1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], “XIX. Of Wrong Assent, or Error”, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC, book IV, § 4, page 354

   The fact is, that since a good, sound, honest, efficient, automatic, nonmetallic currency and standard was tampered with in 1893, India has been a happy hunting-ground for any empiric who conjured with a new scheme of currency, no matter how fantastic.

   1913 January, Moreton Frewen, “The Great Drain of Gold to India”, in The Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review Founded by James Knowles, volume LXXIII, number CCCCXXXI, New York, N.Y.: Leonard Scott Publication Co.; London: Spottiswoode & Co. Ltd., printers, →OCLC, page 59

   To the disgust of doctors, the royal family at Versailles allowed one Brun, a wandering empiric […], to administer a proprietary ‘sovereign remedy’ to the ailing monarch.

   2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 33