Home › Glossary › Letter D

Devil's advocate

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Someone who argues against a position, not out of belief but to test its validity or provoke debate.

Detailed Definition
Formally, the Catholic Church’s “Promoter of the Faith” who challenged sainthood claims; colloquially, a contrarian for intellectual rigor. In poetry, this role appears in dialogic or dramatic forms—questioning dogma, love, or ideology. John Donne’s holy sonnets often adopt this stance, wrestling with faith through doubt. The idiom enables poets to explore ambiguity, ethical complexity, or the necessity of opposition in truth-seeking. Its theatrical duality suits poems where internal conflict manifests as external voice, enriching thematic depth through strategic dissent.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Donne’s “Batter my heart” plays devil’s advocate against God’s mercy to provoke grace; In a debate poem: “I’ll play devil’s advocate—what if peace requires forgetting?”; Political verse: “Someone must play devil’s advocate: is this revolution just or vengeful?”; Classroom scene: “She played devil’s advocate to test our thesis—truth sharpened on doubt’s whetstone”.
Additional Notes
Formally, the Catholic Church’s “Promoter of the Faith” challenged sainthood claims; colloquially, a contrarian for intellectual rigor. In poetry, this role appears in dialogic forms—questioning dogma, love, or ideology. John Donne’s holy sonnets wrestle with faith through doubt. The idiom enables exploration of ambiguity and ethical complexity, where opposition sharpens truth. Educators can use it to teach dialectical thinking in poetry, showing how internal conflict manifests as external voice to enrich thematic depth through strategic dissent.
Also Known As
Play devil’s advocate
Skip to main content