textualist

[teks-choo-uh-list]

noun

1. a person who adheres closely to a text, especially of the Scriptures.

2. a person who is well versed in the text of the Scriptures.

3. Law.,  a person who adheres to the doctrine that a legal document or statute should be interpreted by determining the relatively objective ordinary meaning of its words and phrases.

   Justice Hugo Black took a literal reading of the Bill of Rights, leading to his reputation as a textualist.

Word History and Origins

Origin of textualist¹

First recorded in 1620–30; textual + -ist

Example Sentences

Like her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett claims to be a strict textualist.

From Slate

Jackson’s response refutes Gorsuch’s claim that textualist can always divine a law’s true meaning from words alone.

From Slate

And in 2023, she joined his textualist concurrence in a case about artistic freedom.

From Slate

Here, the justice could not resist taking a shot at Jackson to flaunt his textualist purity: In a caricature of her opinion, he claimed that his colleague found textualism as a judicial philosophy “insufficiently pliable to secure the result” she sought.

From Slate

I don’t think he was saying he was a textualist or originalist.

From Slate