metaphysiciann.

c1454 R. Pecock Folewer to Donet 57 Goddis forbode be it if a man haue..þe ouerer parti of methafisik..but þat..he be clepid not oonli ‘a wise methafisicien’..but also..‘a wise man’.

1597 G. Harvey Trimming T. Nashe in Wks. (1885) III. 22 Thoughe (as I am a Cirurgeon) I coulde picke your teeth, for the other stinkinge breath, yet this I durst not meddle with, this hath neede of a metaphisition.

1654 R. Whitlock Ζωοτομία 160 The very essence of them, or immediatè consequens Essentiam (as the Metaphysitians word it), that which is but one degree from their Essence.

1677 A. Horneck Great Law Consideration (1704) iv. 239 The Metaphysician, that speculates things above sense and nature.

1764 J. Boswell Let. 23 July in Boswell on Grand Tour (1953) I. 36 Then, Sir, she is a metaphysician and a mathematician too.

1796 E. Burke Let. to Noble Lord in Wks. (1808) VIII. 57 Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thoroughbred metaphysician.

1819 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto I xci. 48 He..turn'd, without perceiving his condition, Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.

1877 E. R. Conder Basis of Faith iv. 145 Metaphysicians, it seems, have always been trying to get at the back of knowledge.

1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic i. 33 The metaphysician fails to see this [sc. ‘substance’ fallacy] because he is misled by a superficial grammatical feature of his language.

1958 G. J. Warnock Eng. Philos. since 1900 ix. 121 Even if..the conclusion could really be drawn that the metaphysician's employment of language was without significance.

1988 Lit. & Theol. 2 168 What it could mean for anarchy to be ‘the ultimate reality’ is something that might tax the ablest metaphysician.

1881 M. B. Eddy Sci. & Health (ed. 3) iii. 151 Metaphysicians can heal the sick, absent from them: space is no obstacle to mind.