atomist
(ˈætəmɪst)
[f. atom n. + -ist.]
1. a. One who holds the principles of atomism.
| 1610 Healey St. Aug. City of God 438 Of the Atomists, some confound all, making bodies of coherent remaynders. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. 846 The old Religious Atomists. 1880 E. Cleminshaw tr. Wurtz' Atom. The. 27 The atomists of the seventeenth century..had revived..the ancient conception of the Greek philosophers. |
b. An adherent or student of logical atomism Cf. atomism 1 b.
| 1941 Mind L. 166 They may themselves choose to be called Logical Atomists or Logical Positivists, or may repudiate all such titles. 1956 P. F. Strawson in Ayer et al. Revol. Philos. 97 Atomists and Positivists alike accepted the skeleton language of the new mathematical logic. |
2. A student or exponent of the atomic theory. See atomic a. 2.
| 1869 Phillips Vesuv. x. 270 Symbols of chemical constitution, on which there is still some want of agreement among atomists. |