nominalist, n. (and a.)
(ˈnɒmɪnəlɪst)
[f. nominal a. 2 + -ist. Cf. F. nominaliste (1752).]
One who maintains or accepts the doctrine of nominalism. Also attrib. or as adj.
| 1654 Jer. Taylor Real Pres. 89 This was the sense of Ocham the Father of the Nominalists. a 1695 [see realist 2]. a 1751 Bolingbroke Ess. iv. xli. Wks. 1754 IV. 624 The dispute..between the nominalists and realists about the nature of universals. 1816 Coleridge Lay Serm. (Bohn) 356 Laodiceans in spirit, Minims in faith, and Nominalists in philosophy. 1839 Hallam Hist. Lit. iii. iii. §153 Hartley also resembles Hobbes in the extreme to which he has pushed the nominalist theory. 1843 Mill Logic i. vi. §1 The doctrine of the extreme nominalists that it is an expression of an agreement or disagreement between the meanings of two names. 1880 A. H. Huth Life Buckle I. ii. 123 Horne Tooke was a nominalist and sensationalist. 1885 Pattison Mem. 170, I had not yet abandoned my nominalist foundations. 1965 Listener 9 Dec. 942/1 How much more nominalist, in a way, the whole society is. |