devil's advocate

Calque of Latin advocātus diabolī (“the devil’s advocate”), a popular title given to the officer dealing with the canonization process in the 16th c.

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devil's advocate (plural devil's advocates)

1. (idiomatic) One who debates from a viewpoint which he or she may not actually hold, usually to determine its validity or simply for the sake of argument.

   I don't really believe all that – I was just playing devil's advocate.

   • 1985, Albert Brooks, Lost in America, spoken by David Howard (Albert Brooks):

     Now, play devil's advocate. Can't you live 20 years on $145,000 if you're living out of a motor home and just eating and painting and writing books? I mean, this is what we talked about when we were 19. Remember, we kept saying, "Let's find ourselves," but we didn't have a dollar! So, we watched television instead.

2. (historical, Roman Catholicism) A canon lawyer appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization of the proposed candidate.

• “devil's advocate” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• devil's advocate on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Advocatus Diaboli in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)