Talk:Philomath

"(fil-O-math-ee)" should be brought into line with IPA. Nagelfar (talk) 10:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

What, more specifically, is a lover of learning?

So what are the characteristics of a lover of learning? I came to this page hoping to delve into this concept more. I wondered "does a lover of learning love to interact with all subject material? Can a lover of learning dislike learning about some things or think that some things are boring and therefore not be interested in them, or would this disqualify them as a lover of learning?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.221.139.235 (talk) 11:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I would assume. I'm a philomath, except when it comes to math itself. 76.18.160.47 (talk) 20:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I concur with the above user. I believe "love of learning", or philomathy, is the trait of loving the process of learning, and not (just) that which is learned. Thus, I would assume that philomathy is someone who loves to learn, but this does not have to imply the love of learning everything or someone who wants to learn everything, which one could perhaps describe of as (newly contrived neologisms alert!) philomnimathy or maybe philomniscience. –Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 11:28, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Merge proposal

In the last discussion about trying to delete Pantomath 20 years ago, some editors wanted to merge. That article's talk page also has an informal proposal from 2 years ago. I think it's worth trying formally - because "Pantomath" seems like a sort of resurrected ancient Greek term that certain writers have been trying to wedge in as a neologism. (^{Very opinionated:} they're trying to sound smart OR they think "lover of knowledge" doesn't accurately describe the subject's want/desire of knowledge strongly enough.) ^{Slightly less opinionated:} It has extremely light use in the English language and I don't think we should have articles about every made-up/zombie word/calque that makes it into a publication.

I propose merging Pantomath into Philomath. I think the content in Pantomath can easily be explained in the context of this article, and merging them would not cause any article-size or weighting problems. 🔥Komonzia (message) 17:05, 3 March 2026 (UTC)