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minimalist

[min-uh-muh-list]
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noun
  1. a person who favors a moderate approach to the achievement of a set of goals or who holds minimal expectations for the success of a program.
  2. a practitioner of minimalism in music or art.
adjective
  1. of, relating to, or characteristic of minimalism.
  2. being or offering no more than what is required or essential: a minimalist program for tax reform.

Origin of minimalist

1905–10; in political use < French minimaliste (see minimal, -ist), translation of Russian men'shevík Menshevik; subsequent uses perhaps recoinage with minimal, -ist
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

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British Dictionary definitions for minimalist

Minimalist

noun (in early 20th-century Russia)
  1. a member of the faction of the Social Revolutionaries that advocated immediate postrevolutionary democracy
  2. a less common name for a Menshevik
Compare Maximalist

minimalist

noun
  1. a person advocating a minimal policy, style, technique, action, etc
  2. a minimal artist
adjective
  1. of or relating to minimal art or artists
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for minimalist

n.

1907; see minimal + -ist. Originally an Englishing of Menshevik (q.v.); in sense of "practitioner of minimal art" it is first recorded 1967; the term minimal art is from 1965. As an adjective from 1917 in the Russian political sense; 1969 in reference to art. Related: Minimalistic; Minimalism.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper