Word.ws English Dictionary

legalist

Syllables: le·ga·listUK/ˈliː.ɡə.lɪst//ˈli.ɡə.lɪst/

legalist adjective: of or related to legalism, in its various senses.

Adjective

legalist (comparative more legalist, superlative most legalist)

  1. Of or related to legalism, in its various senses.
    Synonyms:
    justiciar

Noun

legalist (plural legalists)

  1. One who adheres to legalism, in its various senses.
    • “Don’t say anything! Oh, don’t say anything,” cried the atheist cobbler, dancing about in an ecstasy of admiration of the English legal system. For no man is such a legalist as the good Secularist.1911, G. K. Chesterton, “The Hammer of God”, in The Innocence of Father Brown

Synonyms of legalist

Antonyms

Forms of legalist

Adjective
comparativemore legalist
superlativemost legalist
Noun
plurallegalists

Origin of legalist

From legal + -ist. Piecewise doublet of loyalist.

Questions about legalist

What does legalist mean?
Legalist means of or related to legalism, in its various senses.
What part of speech is legalist?
Legalist can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce legalist?
Legalist is pronounced /ˈliː.ɡə.lɪst/ (UK).

Words near legalist in the dictionary

  1. legalisers
  2. legalises
  3. legalising
  4. legalism
  5. legalisms
  6. legalist
  7. legalistic
  8. legalistically
  9. legalistics
  10. legalists
  11. legalitarian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: legalist (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-legalist.ogg.

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