Fwd: "polyhistor, n." - Word of the Day from the OED

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Your word for today is: polyhistor, n.

polyhistor, n.
[‘ A person of great or varied learning; a great scholar.’]
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌpɒlɪˈhɪstə/,  U.S. /ˌpɑliˈhɪstər/
Forms:  15 polihistor,   16– polyhistor.
Etymology: <  classical Latin polyhistōr very learned (Pliny) and its
etymon Hellenistic Greek πολυΐστωρ <  ancient Greek πολυ- poly- comb.
form + ἵστωρ learned (see history n.).
The classical Latin word was used exclusively, and the Greek word
frequently, of Alexander Polyhistor (see polyhistorian n.).
  A person of great or varied learning; a great scholar.
[1573–80  G. Harvey Let.-bk. 166 He hath bene countid heer..a
πολυΐστωρ, and in deed is so commonly termid amongst us.]
1588  J. Harvey Discoursiue Probl. conc. Prophesies 63 In poets,
philosophers, polihistors, antiquaries, philologers, schoolemen, and
other learned discoursers.
1621  R. Montagu Diatribæ Hist. Tithes 453 So great a polyhistor as
Ioseph Scaliger.
1788  H. Fuseli tr. J. C. Lavater Aphorisms on Man 177 Who knows this,
knows more than a thousand polyhistors.
1823  T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. Jan. 87/2 He
designed to make himself..a Polyhistor, or Catholic student.
1885  D. Masson Carlyle ii. 63 Himself a polyhistor or accomplished
universal scholar.
1938  S. Beckett Murphy x. 196 A Hindu polyhistor of dubious caste.
1990  C. R. Johnson Middle Passage (1991) iii. 53 Falcon, a polyhistor
who spent twenty hours a week pouring over old tomes when the weather
was fair.
Derivatives

 polyhiˈstoric adj. of or relating to a polyhistor; widely erudite.
1878  C. T. Newton in 19th Cent. Aug. 315 These votive
inscriptions..became an object of interest to the polyhistoric
students of the ancient world.
1926 Science 29 Oct. 415/2 A book by the polyhistoric Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.
1999 Renaissance Q. 52 358 This was precisely the enterprise..which
would be taken up by the encyclopedic and polyhistoric scholars of the
following century.
 polyˈhistory n. [originally after German Polyhistorei, with
derogatory connotations (1794 in the passage translated in quot. 1799
as Polyhistorey; compare Polyhistorie, with a more neutral sense
(1744))] the character or quality of a polyhistor; wide or varied
learning.
1799  P. Will tr. A. Knigge Pract. Philos. Social Life II. xii. 173
The fatal polyhistory [Ger. Polyhistorey], the rage of being thought
to know something of every thing.
1869  A. W. Ward tr. E. Curtius Hist. Greece II. iii. iii. 509
Sophistry..thus necessarily led to a vain and superficial polyhistory,
such as was most fully represented in the person of Hippias of Elis.
1996 Afr. Amer. Rev. 30 672/2 Calhoun's acquisition and dispensation
of polyhistory derives from his rebirth experience with the Allmuseri.

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