Definition of "-ist" []

• One that performs a specified action: lobbyist. (suffix)
• One that produces, makes, operates, plays, or is connected with a specified thing: novelist. (suffix)
• A specialist in a specified art, science, or skill: biologist. (suffix)
• An adherent or advocate of a specified doctrine, theory, or school of thought: anarchist. (suffix)
• One that is characterized by a specified trait or quality: romanticist. (suffix)

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.

• "It is rooted in the Latin terrere, “to frighten,” and the -ist was coined in France to castigate the perpetrators of the Reign of Terror."