purist

[ pyoor-ist ]

noun

1. a person who advocates the strictest application of the principles or standards in any field, or who insists on purity in language, style, etc.:

   When making hip-hop he began as a purist, putting most of the focus on solid lyrics and less on working with the music and production.

2. Often Purist. Fine Arts. a practitioner of purism, an early 20th-century style of art characterized by the use of simple geometric forms and images evoking manufactured objects:

   The Purists saw their painting as the next step in the evolution of modern art after Cubism, which they found too decorative.

adjective

1. relating to or being a purist:

   The purist view of theater design is that if there is a column or pillar anywhere, there is a problem.

Other Words From

• pu·ris·tic [py, oo, uh, -, rees, -tik], pu·ris·ti·cal adjective
• pu·ris·ti·cal·ly adverb
• hy·per·pur·ist noun adjective
• non·pu·ris·tic adjective
• un·pu·ris·tic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of purist¹

First recorded in 1695–1705; from French puriste, equivalent to pur(e) ( def ) + -ist ( def )

Example Sentences

So how as a purist can you really sit at the table with them?

From The Daily Beast

It was like, he was the anti-Christ and we came from a snobby, purist direction.

From The Daily Beast

After all, radically purist ideologies need to be sheltered from the vagaries of the world, and they can be expensive to maintain.

From The Daily Beast

Despite a history of savvy political tactics, he's been painted as a progressive purist.

From The Daily Beast

He's a conservative, but not a purist; he's a conviction politician—and a pragmatist too.

From The Daily Beast

He died at the age of forty, the greatest literary purist the country had yet produced.

From Project Gutenberg

Is not the age of Nicaea a good time for precedents, O purist in matters ecclesiastical?

From Project Gutenberg

The above-quoted writer in the New York Press is a purist in vocabulary, no less than in grammar.

From Project Gutenberg

It has been said that on occasion his work contained passages a purist would not have passed.

From Project Gutenberg

She is not a bit of a purist and thinks more of a good thought forcefully put than of a slip in the way of a split infinitive.

From Project Gutenberg