Polyhymnia · Daily Eloquenceplay devil's advocate
To argue a side you don't necessarily hold, so the other side has to prove it can stand up.
'Devil's advocate' isn't an argument — it's a costume, and it lets you make the case while standing somewhere else.
The Vatican understood the trick well enough to put it on salary: someone had to attack a candidate for sainthood, and the only way to let a man do that without becoming a villain was to make the attack a role.
Modern conference rooms kept the costume and dropped the office, which is why the phrase now works about as often as a disguise as it does as a service.
“Let me play devil's advocate for a second — if the vendor misses the date, what actually happens to us in October?”
A plan is sailing through a meeting unopposed and someone finally slows it down.
“I loved it too. I'm only playing devil's advocate because nobody's said a word against it all night.”
Two friends arguing about a movie, one taking the other side for the pleasure of it.
The disclaimer only works if it's true — float an opinion you actually hold behind it and it reads as cowardice in costume, which people spot faster than you'd think. And when the question is someone's job or someone's grief, arguing the other side for sport makes you the villain you were only playing.
The Vatican paid a man for four centuries to argue against sainthood. We kept the costume and dropped the job.
▸More — where it lives, variations, references
For four hundred years the Vatican actually kept one on the payroll — a lawyer whose job was to argue against sainthood.
Say it flat and quick — it's a throat-clear, not the point, and the stress belongs to whatever argument comes after it. Lean on 'devil' and you sound like you're enjoying yourself, which is exactly the impression the phrase exists to avoid.
- · be the devil's advocate
- · argue the other side
- · steelman the opposing case — the newer, earnest cousin, no costume required
- Merriam-Webster — 'devil's advocate' (headword; the ecclesiastical sense 'a Roman Catholic official whose duty is to examine critically the evidence on which a demand for beatification or canonization rests', plus the modern sense of a person who argues a contrary position to provoke discussion). Confirms the expression is genuine, dictionary-recognized American English and that the gloss matches the standard sense.
- Merriam-Webster — 'promotor fidei' (headword). Confirms the Latin title used in the provenance note is real and correctly spelled.
- Britannica — 'Devil's advocate' (definition, meaning, Catholicism, role). Corroborates the advocatus diaboli / Promoter of the Faith office and its function of arguing against canonization.
- Wikipedia — 'Devil's advocate'. Confirms the 1587 establishment under Sixtus V, the promotor fidei naming, and the 1983 Divinus Perfectionis Magister reform after which the promoter of the faith 'no longer acts as a legal adversary'; also the basis for the QA correction that the office was reduced, not abolished (it survives as the Prelate Theologian).
- Vatican — John Paul II, apostolic constitution 'Divinus Perfectionis Magister' (January 25, 1983). Primary source for the 1983 bookend of the adversarial canonization process.
- Cambridge Dictionary (US) — 'devil's advocate'. Second dictionary confirming the modern figurative sense and the zero-article headword form 'play devil's advocate'.