Definition of "constructionist" [con•struc•tion•ist]

• A person who construes a legal text or document in a specified way: a strict constructionist. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The difference between an activist judge and a strict constructionist is not necessarily the decisions they arrive at, but how they came to those decisions."
• "Rudy's new mantra, I am a strict constructionist, which is another way of saying conservative standard-bearers like Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito are Rudy's kind of guys."
• "and his so-called constructionist efforts of the constitution are nothing but a thinly disguised attempt to roll back civil rights for women and people of color."