Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who adheres strictly to established custom, form, or usage, as in style, conduct, or procedure; one who is attached to the observance of recognized modes or methods; also, one who has undue regard to forms and rules.
- n. In philosophy, one who denies the existence of matter and recognizes the existence of form only; an idealist.
Wiktionary
- n. An overly formal person, especially one who adheres to current forms; a stickler
- n. An advocate of formalism
- adj. Of or pertaining to formalism; formalistic
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One overattentive to forms, or too much confined to them; esp., one who rests in external religious forms, or observes strictly the outward forms of worship, without possessing the life and spirit of religion.
Etymologies
- formal + -ist (Wiktionary)
Examples
“It might for someone like me, or like Justice White (both of us are strongly legal realist in our orientation, as you may have guessed) but the point of being a formalist is that if you don't play by the rules, you don't get the result you are seeking.”
“News at Eleven: Richard Wilbur is regarded, not always to his liking, as a leading "formalist"--"formal" can be found near "formaldehyde" in the dictionary, he jokes--a master of traditional, tempered verse that can seem old-fashioned in more radical times.”
“Frankenthaler's works were true to this so-called formalist aesthetic.”
“Of all people, a formalist will be the last to say otherwise.”
“It wouldn't do, for example, to substitute "formalist" for "legal conservative" here, because that term is too narrow: the late Chief Justice, of course, was a "legal conservative," but whatever one could say about Rehnquist, I don't think that he could honestly be called a formalist.”
“This "close reading" may seem deliberately old-fashioned and "formalist," because it is.”
My Name Was Martha: A Renaissance Woman's Autobiographical Poem
“Remizov; they were taught (in the very precise sense of the word -- they had regular classes) by Zamyatin; and explained the general principles of Art by the gifted and light-minded young "formalist" critic, Victor Shklovsky.”
“Like the younger composer he also stepped over the mark on occasion and was branded a "formalist" before apologies and conformist material re-established a secure position, though he was never able to fully express himself under these conditions.”
“It will also give us real insights into whether there is a working majority on the court for a "formalist" approach to the separation of powers.”
“Often described as the return of content, it can be so named only by someone who thinks that abstract painting is devoid of content or that Edward Weston's "formalist" photos have nothing to say about the landscapes, vegetables, and nudes they picture.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘formalist’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Keywords, by Raymond Williams
From a book about life and death.
aesthetic, alienation, art, behaviour, bourgeois, bureaucracy, capitalism, career, charity, city, civilization, class and 99 more...
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Wordsthatcouldbeusedinmyth
bicephalous, invertebrate, amaranthine, befuddle, browbeat, expurgation, bigoted, groan, telic, untoward, mummer, formalist and 17 more...
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CravinforClavin's Words
bellicose, megalopolis, spurious, interstitial, elegiac, crushing, proselytize, strident, hirsute, peripatetic, stultify, apoplectic and 66 more...
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alist
Not the A-list, not atilt, just a list of -alists that might be construed as descriptive of the list. See -alist for the open list.
formalist, specialist, realist, originalist, partialist, literalist, actualist, naturalist, anomalist, capitalist, conceptualist, essentialist and 27 more...
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