Meaning

1 senses

  1. (informal)To play devil's advocate.

Origin

Calque of Latin advocātus diabolī (“the devil’s advocate”), a popular title given to the o

Calque of Latin advocātus diabolī (“the devil’s advocate”), a popular title given to the officer dealing with the canonization process in the 16th c.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

devil's advocates, devil's advocating, devil's advocated, devil's advocated
Base formdevil's advocate · to devil's advocate
3rd person singulardevil's advocates
Present participledevil's advocating
Past simpledevil's advocated
Past participledevil's advocated

regular

Present simpleLesson

I, you, we, theydevil's advocate
he, she, itdevil's advocates

Past simpleLesson

all personsdevil's advocated

Present perfectLesson

I, you, we, theyhave devil's advocated
he, she, ithas devil's advocated

Future simple (will)Lesson

all personswill devil's advocate

Lessons for this word

3 lessons

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
deviationdeviceB1devilB2devilishdeviousdevise

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

devil's advocate — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto