emotionalist

[ih-moh-shuh-nl-ist]

noun

1. a person who appeals to the emotions, especially unduly.

2. a person easily affected by emotion.

3. a person who bases conduct, or the theory of conduct, upon feelings rather than reason.

   a romantic emotionalist.

Other Word Forms

• emotionalistic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of emotionalist¹

First recorded in 1865–70; emotional + -ist

Example Sentences

Former president William Howard Taft minced no words in attacking Brandeis: “He is a muckraker, an emotionalist for his own purposes, a socialist, prompted by jealousy, a hypocrite … a man of infinite cunning … of great tenacity of purpose, and in my judgment, of much power for evil.”

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The opposite of a stoic, he’s rap’s premier emotionalist, a quality that’s occasionally made him the object of ridicule but has also made him very, very rich.

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"He is a muckraker, an emotionalist for his own purposes, a socialist, prompted by jealousy, a hypocrite, a man who has certain high ideals in his imagination, but who is utterly unscrupulous, in method in reaching them, a man of infinite cunning ... of great tenacity of purpose, and, in my judgment, of much power for evil," Taft wrote at the time.

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I have heard that there is a sannyasi in Bengal, an emotionalist, a disciple of Keshav Bh�rati and a fraud on the public.

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How amazingly she had altered, in all these weeks, from the one ideaed, feverish little emotionalist she'd been in the autumn!

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