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purist

UK/ˈpjʊəɹɪst/US/ˈpjʊɹ.ɪst/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,720 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: purists

A purist is somebody who insists on strict traditional correctness. A language purist, purists complain, for the purists.

It is used with affection and impatience in equal measure, and every field has them. Language purists are the best-known kind, and nearly every rule they defend was itself an innovation somebody once objected to.

Definitions of purist

  1. 1nounpuristSomebody who insists on strict traditional correctness.C1

    “Coffee purists say you should never add milk or sugar to a good espresso.”

purist is a person.

Where it comes from

French puriste comes from pur, pure, from Latin purus.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *pewH-

  2. French

    puriste

  3. English, today

    purist

French puriste. by surface analysis, pur(e) + pure + ist.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

purist in the wild

  • The purists wish to make the adoption of cosmetic changes (sweat glands removed, teeth fixed and so on) compulsory.

    The Chromium Fence

  • Ioannidis was considered a "purist and a moralist, a type of Greek Gaddafi".

    Dimitrios Ioannidis

  • Samuel Ampzing was a Dutch minister, poet and purist.

    Samuel Ampzing

  • The Greco-Roman, the purist and the casticist are related to the interpretation given to different elements of style, whether intellectual, formal, structural or decorative.

    Purism (Spanish architecture)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.