purist, n. (and a.)
(ˈpjʊərɪst)
[ad. F. puriste (1586, applied to the Puritans), f. pur pure; or (sense 2) f. L. pūr-us pure + -ist.]
1. One who aims at, affects, or insists on scrupulous or excessive purity, esp. in language or style; a stickler for purity or correctness.
| 1706 Phillips (ed. 6), Purist, one that affects to speak or write neatly and properly. [1751 Chesterfield Lett. (1792) III. 185 English, in which you are certainly no puriste.] 1758 Jortin Erasmus I. 443 Some Italian Purists, who scrupled to make use of any word or phrase, which was not to be found in Cicero. 1820 Hazlitt Lect. Dram. Lit. 143 The greatest purists (hypocrisy apart) are often free-livers. 1837–9 Hallam Hist. Lit. (1847) III. 143 The use of quotations in a different language, which some purists in French style had in horror. 1842 Murray's Hand-bk. N. Italy 25/2 The cortile is a fine example of..the architecture which purists term impure—columns encircled by bands, story above story. 1866 Felton Anc. & Mod. Greece II. ii. ii. 275 The Macedonians were not acknowledged as genuine Greeks by the purists of Sparta and Athens. 1870 Lowell Lett., To C. E. Norton 15 Oct. (1894) II. 74 As to words, I am something of a purist, though I like best the word that best says the thing. |
2. One who maintained that the New Testament was written in pure Greek.
| 1835 Moses Stuart. 1907 Expositor Nov. 428 In the controversy of the Purists and Hebraists in the seventeenth century. |
3. Art. (With capital initial.) An adherent of Purism (see purism 2).
| 1939 in Webster Add. 1959 H. Read Conc. Hist. Mod. Painting vi. 215 Between the years 1920 and 1925 the Purists had a decisive influence on the development of abstract art throughout Europe and America. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia VIII. 309/3 There were many painters..who, like the Purists, were attracted to a machine-inspired aesthetic. |
4. attrib. or as adj.
| 1939 in Webster Add. 1945 Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. ii. 155 Not even the most purist critic could expect a sudden jump to total equalitarianism. 1959 H. Read Conc. Hist. Mod. Painting vi. 216 Nicholson began as a decorative painter of great charm, and then came under various ‘purist’ influences of which the most direct and powerful was that of Mondrian. 1961 R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts 5 The sentences of spoken English are often poorly constructed—and this is not a purist judgement. 1965 W. S. Allen Vox Latina ii. 55 The purist reader would therefore be justified in reading the nominative plural forms filii, di as filĭ{eacudotbl}, d{eacudotbl} respectively. 1978 Gramophone Jan. 1307/3 Disc and cassette reproduce about equally well, though I suspect we would like both versions a lot better if a more purist recording technique were adopted. |
Hence puˈristic, puˈristical adjs., characteristic of a purist; characterized by purism.
| a 1872 Maurice (Ogilvie Supp.), Bentham's puristical wisdom. 1877 Symonds Renaiss. in It., Reviv. Learn. (1897) II. vii. 319 The imitation of the ancients grew more puristic and precise. 1880 V. Lee Stud. Italy i. 5 This national Italian drama, unnoticed by the puristic eighteenth century. 1882 Athenæum 15 Apr. 474/3 He complains..that the Persian language is flooded..by Arabic words and phrases; and the whole book is a practical illustration of his puristic theory. 1908 Edinb. Rev. Apr. 460 Her puristical vanity. |