cynic

Etymology

First recorded in the 1540s,^[1][2] originally of the ancient school of philosophers founded by Antisthenes.^[3] It is borrowed from Latin cynicus (perhaps partly via Middle French cynique),^[4][1] from Ancient Greek κυνικός (kunikós, “dog-like, currish”),^[4][2] from Ancient Greek κύων (kúōn, “dog”),^[4][5] from Proto-Indo-European *kwon- (“dog”).^[3]

The name probably referred originally to the Kynosarges, the gymnasium outside Athens where Antisthenes taught,^[4][3] but it was popularly taken in the sense “dog-like”, in allusion to the coarse manners of the philosophers.^[4][3][6] The sense “sneering, sarcastic person” dates from the 1590s.^[3]

References

1. [1] [2] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
2. [1] [2] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. [1] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. [1] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org