Dictionary

quotationist en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˌkwoʊˈteɪʃənəst/ (General-American)
• /kwə(ʊ)ˈteɪʃənɪst/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (General-American) audio
• /kwə(ʊ)ˈteɪʃn̩ɪst/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Etymology tree English quotation Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Hellenic *-tās Ancient Greek -τής (-tḗs) Ancient Greek -ῐστής (-ĭstḗs)bor. Latin -istader. Old French -istebor. Middle English -ist English -ist English quotationist From quotation + -ist (suffix denoting a person who engages in a particular type of activity).

Meanings

1. One who makes, or is given to making, quotations; a quoter.
   • By-the-by, you great Quotationist, you did not quote Terence rightly. 1875 August 27 (date written), Friedrich Max Müller, “Death of Charles Kingsley. Visit to Italy. Windsor. Last Visit of Mother. Chips, Volume IV. The Mumbles. Manchester. Plans for Return to Germany. Maximilian Order. Oxford Girls’ High School.”, in Georgina Max Müller [Georgina Adelaide Grenfell], editor, The Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Müller […], volume I, New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], published 1902, →OCLC, page 521:
   • As a quotationist he [Robert Southey] exceeds Old Burton [Robert Burton?]. Quoting is with him a ‘sine qua nonniness’, a happy term which I make him my best bow for inventing. 1859, “Entrance of Professional Life—Impression Made on His Legal Associates”, in The Christian Lawyer: Being a Portrait of the Life and Character of William George Baker, New York, N.Y.: Carlton & Porter, […], →OCLC, page 53:
   • This chapter is becoming quite quotationist, which is one of [John] Milton's words that didn't catch on. 2011, Mark Forsyth, “Miltonic Meanders”, in The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through Hidden Connections of the English Language, London: Icon Books, →ISBN, page 16:
   • Having dead men's mental coin rattling from the pen-point or tongue tip may make a clever quotationist, but never a rich, ripe thinker. 1868 February, [Jennie Fowler Willing], “Thinking”, in I[saac] W[illiam] Wiley, editor, The Ladies’ Repository: A Monthly Periodical, Devoted to Literature and Religion, volume I (New Series; volume XXVIII overall), Cincinnati, Oh.: Poe & Hitchcock; […], →OCLC, page 91, column 2:
   • Let the ſtatutes of God be turn'd over, be ſcann'd a nevv, and conſider'd not altogether by the narrovv intellectuals of quotationiſts and common placers, but (as vvas the ancient right of Counſels) by men of vvhat liberall profeſſion ſoever, of eminent ſpirit and breeding, joyn'd vvith a diffuſe and various knovvledge of divine and human things; able to ballance and define good and civill, right and vvrong throughout every ſtate of life; […] 1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], “To the Parlament of England, with the Assembly”, in The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.], →OCLC:
   • The Waste Land [by Thomas Stearns Eliot] is not only, however, a hash of Webster, Shakespeare, Baudelaire, the Bible, vaudeville ballads, Swinburne, Eliot's own poems, the Upanishads, etc. There are, in its splintered depths, moments of imaginative vigor. […] Almost choked by the pretentious quotationist, there is a mute anguish in the section entitled "Death by Water." 1923 September, Louis Untermeyer, “The Cerebralists”, in American Poetry since 1900, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, pages 361–362:

Forms

Relateds

quoter · quote · quotation