pragmatist

pragmatist noun: one who acts in a practical or straightforward manner; one who is pragmatic; one who values practicality or pragmatism.

Noun

pragmatist (plural pragmatists)

One who acts in a practical or straightforward manner; one who is pragmatic; one who values practicality or pragmatism.
- A pragmatist would never plant such a messy tree, but I like its flowers.
One who acts in response to particular situations rather than upon abstract ideals; one who is willing to ignore their ideals to accomplish goals.
- I'm not a thief, I am a pragmatist. I need this bread to feed my family.
- We cannot trust him not to lie for his own gain: he's an opportunist and a pragmatist.
One who belongs to the philosophic school of pragmatism; one who holds that the meaning of beliefs is the actions they entail, and that the truth of those beliefs consists in the actions they entail, successfully leading a believer to their goals.
- [S]ome pragmatists (such as William James) took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world.2007, John Lachs, Robert Talisse, American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia, page 310
An advocate of pragmatism.
(uncommon) One who studies pragmatics.

Synonyms:

pragmatician

pragmatist (comparative more pragmatist, superlative most pragmatist)

Advocating pragmatism.
- Historians also suggest that Roosevelt was a pragmatist in foreign affairs, in that his policies were determined by practical consequences rather than by any philosophy.2013, John Wright, Access to History for the IB Diploma: The Second World War and the Americas, Hodder Education, →ISBN

I'm a thoroughgoing pragmatist to the fullest extent of the word.
The country’s first prime minister, the hard-drinking political pragmatist Sir John A.
You may have been a classy, demure teenager, but I was a pragmatist, a hedge-better.

From Ancient Greek πρᾶγμα (prâgma, “thing”).

What does pragmatist mean?: Pragmatist means one who acts in a practical or straightforward manner; one who is pragmatic; one who values practicality or pragmatism.
What part of speech is pragmatist?: Pragmatist can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of pragmatist?: The plural of pragmatist is pragmatists.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pragmatist (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: 2026-09-02

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