essayist
Americannoun
-
essayists
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of essayist
Explanation
Someone who writes short, literary nonfiction is an essayist. If you love penning political manifestos or book reviews, you might want to try being a published essayist. Anyone who writes short pieces of nonfiction can describe themselves as an essayist, especially if those essays get published in journals or on websites. All you need to do to become an essayist is polish your writing skills and find a topic you're really interested in — then start writing essays! Essayist is from essay and its Latin root exigere, "try out or test."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The 24-year-old essayist and stockpicker amassed a $45 billion portfolio, and a cult following on the internet, thanks to his prescient predictions of where AI was headed and which companies were going to benefit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
The author is a Los Angeles–based novelist and essayist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026
Critics, including a guest essayist for the New York Times, have called his Oval Office remodel a "Gilded Rococo Nightmare".
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2025
Waldie, essayist and cultural historian, is the author of “Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place,” among other books.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2025
Still, those writers would likely have been thinking of Indians without him—the essayist Montaigne had noted the same antiauthoritarian attitudes a century earlier.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Even when Didion moved away from film reviews to become one of the preeminent essayists of her generation, she clung to Wayne as an avatar.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2025
Several essayists have described common characteristics of the “Star Wars” generation in terms of its existence at a technological turning point.
From Salon ● May 25, 2024
“Palestine’s poets, scholars, novelists and journalists and essayists have risked everything, including their lives and the lives of their families, to share their words with the world,” the letter reads in part.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 12, 2024
PEN America is made up of novelists, journalists, editors, poets, essayists, playwrights and publishers.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 9, 2022
There are, to be sure, stand-up comedians, shaggy- dog raconteurs, consummate essayists, and authors of mystery novels who can build up curiosity and suspense and then resolve it all with a sudden revelation.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
