An academic is someone engaged in the academic profession; the noun is Standard but probably not usual in Oratorical or Formal uses. The plural, academics, means both “teachers and scholars” and ”academic subjects, programs, or courses,” especially as distinguished from athletics or other collegiate activities: She was obliged to devote more time to her academics than to basketball. The adjective academic has much wider use, meaning “anything associated with formal learning and its practitioners” but later picking up its most common use, in the pejorative sense of “impractical, useless”: The question is academic, because events have answered it. When you use the adjective in its other senses, especially “pertaining to the academy,” be wary that derogation doesn’t creep in with it. Academicals are academic regalia—caps, gowns, and hoods. An academician is a member of an academy, teacher or scholar. See also -IC.
