Other forms: motorists
A motorist is somebody driving a car. The formal word for a driver.
It belongs almost entirely to news reports, road signs and organisations that campaign about roads, where motorists are treated as a group with interests. Nobody describes themselves as a motorist. The word carries a faint whiff of the 1930s, when motoring was still a pastime rather than a necessity. Driver is the everyday term, and road user is the neutral word that covers cyclists and pedestrians too.
1nounmotoristA person who drives a car.
“Motorists were warned to expect long delays.”
Latin
mōtor
Middle English
motour
English
motor
English, today
motorist
Built from
From motor + -ist. motor comes from Middle English motour, from Latin mōtor. From Middle English motour (“controller, prime mover; God”), from Latin mōtor (“mover; that which moves something”), from mōtō (“to set in motion”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA