Affixes

Some examples in ‑ician are clinician, electrician, magician, mathematician, optician, and technician. Examples in ‑icist include ceramicist, geneticist, and lyricist. The two forms are equivalent in meaning and there is no clear rule about which is used on which stem; physician and physicist both derive from Latin physica, natural things, but by different routes and have very different senses. A few words in ‑ician have been formed on other English stems, mainly in American English: beautician, mortician. See also ‑ian and ‑ist.