preterist, n. (a.)
(ˈprɛtərɪst)
Also præ-.
[f. preter-, short for preterite + -ist.]
1. One whose chief interest is in the past; one who regards the past with most pleasure or favour.
| 1864 in Webster; and in later Dicts. 1962 V. Nabokov Pale Fire 35 A preterist: one who collects cold nests. |
2. Theol. a. One who holds that the prophecies of the Apocalypse have been already (wholly or in great part) fulfilled.
| 1843 G. S. Faber Sacr. Calend. Prophecy (1844) I. p. xviii, To consider certain vituperative prophecies..as already accomplished in the course of the first and second centuries: whence, to commentators of this School, we may fitly apply the name of Preterists. 1854 Præterists [see futurist]. 1860 Jowett in Ess. & Rev. 371 The Preterists and Futurists..may alike claim the authority of the Book of Daniel, or the Revelation. |
b. attrib. or adj. Of or pertaining to preterists.
| 1878 H. G. Guinness End of Age (1880) 93 Preterist, Futurist and Presentist schemes of interpretation. 1904 G. Smith Short Hist. Chr. Missions i. iv. 43 A Praeterist, or a Futurist interpretation of its visions. |