Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who practices or urges strict correctness, especially in the use of words.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who aims scrupulously at purity, particularly in the choice of language; one who is a rigorous critic of purity in literary style.
- n. One who maintains that the New Testament was written in pure Greek.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to purism
- n. An advocate of purism
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who aims at excessive purity or nicety, esp. in the choice of language.
- n. One who maintains that the New Testament was written in pure Greek.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who insists on great precision and correctness (especially in the use of words)
Examples
“But there is also the other side - what we might call the purist side - the side that appreciates great clutch plays no matter how foolish it was to punt to DeSean Jackson, he still had to score that touchdown, amazing passes, brilliant pass-rushing schemes and all the rest.”
“Remember, this is the President who's only really lost his temper publicly with people like them - he labeled their positions, which were both more pragmatic and popular than his own, as "purist" - and whose Administration once singled out "the institutional left" for its nastiest attacks.”
“I get called a purist all the time for seeking purity but I do make consessions where I know I must.”
“How could composing these pieces in advance ever match the spark and true flow of the group's all-live, no-overdub purist improvisational aesthetic?”
“Even more interesting was the fact that I was called a purist!”
“Perhaps I'm just a blinkered "purist," but I've always thought books were published to be read, not to be scrutinized for their marketing devices.”
“This kind of purist reform may lead to the marginalization of the GOP across america.”
“They have decided not to go with the "expand the party, include more people" but rather to run with the "purist" tack – this is why we are seeing the nonsense we are seeing, with the lies and the death panels, and the misinformation.”
“You ignore the fact that what happened to the Republicans is likely to happen to us if we continue to insist on "purist" like they did?”
Eight Dem Senators Defend the Right to Filibuster Climate Change
“As asserted in the movie's very first scene, the fanatical Almoravids were bent on destroying the Muslims who wrote poetry, studied philosophy and developed science and math in order to assert a "purist" form of the Islamic religion.”
The Huffington Post: David Shasha: Charlton Heston's 'El Cid': A Hero for Our Time
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘purist’.
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MUSIC - jazz
Afro, habanera, pentatonic scale, bop, bebop, jazz, cool jazz, pentatonic, malignment, music genre, jazz musician, syncopate and 437 more...
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pedantic words
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,..Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schooleboyes.
pedagogic, schoolmasterly, academic, bookish, donnish, dry as dust, dryasdust, pedantic, erudite, formal, inkhorn, learned and 65 more...
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Nigella Bites
words from the cookbook "Nigella Bites" by Nigella Lawson
intend, evangelical, present, nattering space, inevitably, consequently, techniques, liqueur, purist, frankly, constraints, jot and 256 more...
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MEC4 Lesson 154
bird's eye view, subtitle, dry humor, outraged, credence, heated, defile, purist, affected, pompous, incisive, straightforward and 32 more...
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