▪ I. ist, quasi-n.
[The suffix -ist used generically as a nonce-word.]
A professor of some ism; a holder of some special doctrine, or adherent of some system; a votary of, or expert in, a particular science, art, or pursuit. Chiefly used in a context suggesting some group of words in -ist, and often disparagingly or humorously.
| 1811 [see ism]. 1835 Carlyle in Froude Life in Lond. (1884) I. 44, I am neither Pagan nor Turk, nor circumcised Jew; but an unfortunate Christian individual resident at Chelsea,..neither Pantheist nor Pot-theist, nor any Theist or Ist whatsoever, having a decided contempt for all such manner of system-builders or sect-founders. 1841 ― Pref. Emerson's Ess. p. x, Ists and Isms are rather growing a weariness. 1875 Geo. Eliot in Cross Life III. 253 We must not take every great physicist—or other ‘ist’—for an apostle. 1887 T. Hardy Woodlanders I. xiv. 257 A dreamy 'ist of some sort, or too deeply steeped in some false kind of 'ism. 1897 Literature 27 Nov. 186 We are at a loss in what ‘ist’ his name shall terminate. |
▪ II. † ist, int. Obs.
[A natural utterance.]
An exclamation used to call attention, or to enjoin silence: cf. hist. (In quot. 1540 as n.)
| 1540 Morysine Vives' Introd. Wysd. D vj, If it go a stray,..calle it ageyne, as it were with a lyttel ist. 1611 Cotgr., Houische,..husht, whist, ist, not a word for your life. |