Word.ws English Dictionary

descriptionist

US/dəˈskɹɪpʃənəst/

descriptionist noun: synonym of descriptivist.

Noun

descriptionist (plural descriptionists)

  1. Synonym of descriptivist.
    • The author of the Waverley novels is another fine example; but he clearly takes his highest rank as a descriptionist—the painter of effects and appearances rather than of facts and of causes.1824, The Monthly Repertory of English Literature, page 344
    • Although he is a descriptionist, he is often more effective than Roberts or Lampman.1897, Canadian Magazine, volume 8, page 105
    Synonyms:
    descriptivist
  2. One who subscribes to descriptionism.

Adjective

descriptionist (not comparable)

  1. Descriptivist.
    • In effect, they say "a plague on both your houses" to the two sides in the prescriptionist-descriptionist debate.2013, William D. Nordhaus, Economics and Policy Issues in Climate Change, page 97
  2. Regarding utterances as primarily descriptive rather than as rigidly specifying a particular thing or kind of thing.
    • The problem with the descriptionist account of date-times is that it gives the wrong truth conditions to sentences like that in CAESAR.2015 January 8, Leo Carton Mollica, “Explanation and nowness: an objection to the A-Theory”, in Philosophical Studies, →DOI
  3. Of or relating to descriptionism (theory of truth).

Examples of descriptionist in a sentence

  • He was, on the other hand, the very opposite of a descriptionist in his physics, especially later in his career.1994, Dorothy Ross, Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences, 1870-1930, →ISBN, page 134:
  • “Oh,” said one of my lunch companions, “you’re a descriptionist rather than a prescriptionist.”2002, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, volume 122, page 4:

Synonyms of descriptionist

Forms of descriptionist

pluraldescriptionists

Origin of descriptionist

From description + -ist.

Words formed from descriptionist

Questions about descriptionist

What does descriptionist mean?
Descriptionist means synonym of descriptivist.
How do you use descriptionist in a sentence?
He was, on the other hand, the very opposite of a descriptionist in his physics, especially later in his career.
What part of speech is descriptionist?
Descriptionist can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce descriptionist?
Descriptionist is pronounced /dəˈskɹɪpʃənəst/ (US).
What is the plural of descriptionist?
The plural of descriptionist is descriptionists.

Words near descriptionist in the dictionary

  1. descriptionalism
  2. descriptionalist
  3. descriptionalists
  4. descriptionally
  5. descriptionism
  6. descriptionist
  7. descriptionistic
  8. descriptionists
  9. descriptionless
  10. descriptions
  11. descriptive

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: descriptionist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “descriptionist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/descriptionist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.