hermeneut

plural hermeneuts · alternative hermeneute

1. human sciencesA practitioner of hermeneutics, someone who interprets a text, especially a holy text.

   He was a hermeneut who worked out striking interpretations of texts.

   1989, George H. Jensen, “Introduction”, in Post-Jungian Criticism, page 3

   1 more example

   Moses, full of sacrificial institutes, is the text, Isaiah and all the prophets are the hermeneuts[…].

   1857 May 25, Professor Lumsden, “Conversion of the Jews”, in Proceedings of the Scotland Free Church General Assembly, page 46

2. broadlyAn interpreter of culture, experience, etc.

   Oh, an ardent hermeneut might try to distinguish his or her own experience as more intensively "pop" than that of less authentic metaconsumers passing through Coke's world.

   1999, James A. Boon, Verging on Extra-vagance

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   In short, Hillman is not a hermeneut but an imagist, or phenomenologist, who sticks to the image, adheres to the phenomenon, and adamantly refuses to interpret it, or reduce it to a concept.

   2008, Michael Vannoy Adams, “The Archetypal School”, in Cambridge Companion to Jung, page 114