usagist
usagist noun: one who defines a language by usage rather than theory.
Noun
usagist (plural usagists)
- One who defines a language by usage rather than theory.
- The most Talmudic usagists say compare to seeks to show similarity between unlike things: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" or "Can the human brain be compared to a computer?"1995 November 6, William Safire, “ON LANGUAGE; 'To' vs. 'With'”, in The New York Times
- To hell with the Bard, replied the 19-year-old common usagist; gild the lily is what people say, as I was being frog-marched out of the city room.2006 March 11, William Safire, “Language: Nifty gifties: Books full of words - Opinion - International Herald Tribune”, in The New York Times
- Synonyms:
- descriptivist
Synonyms of usagist
Forms of usagist
| plural | usagists |
|---|
Origin of usagist
From usage + -ist.
Questions about usagist
- What does usagist mean?
- Usagist means one who defines a language by usage rather than theory.
- What part of speech is usagist?
- Usagist is a noun.
- What is the plural of usagist?
- The plural of usagist is usagists.
Words near usagist in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: usagist (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: “usagist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/usagist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.