puristn.adj.

1699 tr. J. de La Bruyère Characters 104 They call themselves Puriets [1700 Purists]. [margin] A sort of people who affected to be extream nice in their language.

1706 Phillips's New World of Words (new ed.) Purist, one that affects to speak or write neatly and properly.

1758 J. Jortin Life Erasmus I. 443 Some Italian Purists, who scrupled to make use of any word or phrase, which was not to be found in Cicero.

1820 W. Hazlitt Lect. Dramatic Lit. 143 The greatest purists (hypocrisy apart) are often free-livers.

1842 Murray's Hand-bk. N. Italy 25/2 The cortile is a fine example of..the architecture which purists term impure—columns encircled by bands, story above story.

1867 Felton's Greece, Anc. & Mod. II. 275 The Macedonians were not acknowledged as genuine Greeks by the purists of Sparta and Athens.

1926 Daily Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 16 July 4/6 It [sc. a hypothesis] may be rejected on various grounds; the ductus litterarum may not satisfy some purists.

1989 Face Jan. 70/1 Their hybrid of jazz, soul and gospel confuses purists.

2006 Good Woodworking June 29/1&2 The purist would mitre-joint these pieces and that's all very nice, but the more practical and stronger option is to join the edge..section to the face..section using biscuit joints.

1835 M. Stuart Treat. on Syntax New Test. Dial. p. vii The Purists would allow of nothing but pure Attic Greek in it.

1859 E. Masson tr. G. B. Winer Gram. New Test. Diction i. i. 25 Various..scholars (the Purists [Ger. Puristen]) perseveringly endeavoured to demonstrate that the style of the N.T. entirely reaches the standard of classical Greek purity..while others (the Hebraists) maintained..that it exhibits a..predominant Hebrew tincture.

1907 Expositor Nov. 428 In the controversy of the Purists and Hebraists in the seventeenth century.

1999 J. E. Botha Speaking of Jesus ii. 27 The ‘Purists’ believed that the Greek of the New Testament was pure classical Greek—despite the studies of the Humanists, who drew attention to Semitic interference.

1923 J. Gordon Mod. French Painters viii. 87 The..crop of Orphists, Futurists, Synchronists, Purists, Simultaneists, Dada-ists and so on, are as a rule irritating adjectives with no real meaning.

1959 H. Read Conc. Hist. Mod. Painting vi. 215 Between the years 1920 and 1925 the Purists had a decisive influence on the development of abstract art throughout Europe and America.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia VIII. 309/3 There were many painters..who, like the Purists, were attracted to a machine-inspired aesthetic.

1998 G. Berghaus Ital. Futurist Theatre iii. iv. 414 Prampolini's contacts with the Bauhaus, the Purists around Le Corbusier, and De Stijl are well-documented in the journals of these movements.

1856 J. Ruskin Mod. Painters III. vi. 78 It is to be noted that entire scorn of this purist ideal is the sign of a far greater weakness.

1894 O. F. Emerson Hist. Eng. Lang. ii. vi. 86 A second class of writers represents a purist tendency with regard to English.

1945 A. Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. ii. 155 Not even the most purist critic could expect a sudden jump to total equalitarianism.

1959 H. Read Conc. Hist. Mod. Painting vi. 216 Nicholson began as a decorative painter of great charm, and then came under various ‘purist’ influences of which the most direct and powerful was that of Mondrian.

1997 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 29 Mar. 1/3 The couple..found the original paint scheme spurring them to undertake a ‘purist’ restoration instead of the intended renovation.