prescriptivist
Americannoun
adjective
Other Word Forms
- prescriptivism noun
Etymology
Origin of prescriptivist
First recorded in 1950–55; prescriptive + -ist
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.
To behold a grammatical descriptivist at war with a grammatical prescriptivist who happens to be her twin is truly an uncommon pleasure.
From New York Times • Feb. 6, 2020
Lionel Shriver, by contrast to McCulloch, is a prescriptivist.
From The New Yorker • Aug. 15, 2019
Do you go out of your way to avoid splitting infinitives, make gargling noises in the “10 items or less” queue, and have strong feelings about the word “whom”? Take a jersey: you’re team prescriptivist.
From The Guardian • Oct. 7, 2017
No one among them ever thought himself a prescriptivist, but the prescriptivist honor roll is distinguished.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 3, 2016
The nineteenth-century prescriptivist Richard White had no luck banning standpoint and washtub, nor did his contemporary William Cullen Bryant succeed in outlawing commence, compete, lengthy, and leniency.
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.
