Devil's Advocate
"Someone who argues an opposing position, often just to test an idea."
A genuine, formal role within the Roman Catholic Church, not a metaphor to begin with. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V formally established the office of "advocatus diaboli" (Latin for devil's advocate) as part of the canonization process, an official whose specific job was to argue skeptically against a candidate for sainthood, testing claims of miracles and virtue for weaknesses or exaggeration. The adversarial role deliberately strengthened the process by ensuring every case could survive real scrutiny. The term moved into everyday figurative English by the mid-1700s.
Sources: Pope Sixtus V's 1587 establishment of the advocatus diaboli office, documented in Catholic Church records and Britannica; figurative use from the mid-18th century.
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