descriptivist

American  

[dih-skrip-tuh-vist] / dɪˈskrɪp tə vɪst /

noun

1. a writer, teacher, or supporter of descriptive grammar or descriptive linguistics.

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or based on descriptive grammar or descriptive linguistics.

Other Word Forms

• descriptivism noun

Etymology

Origin of descriptivist

First recorded in 1950–55; descriptive + -ist

Example Sentences

Linguists these days are mostly descriptivist observers who hover somewhere outside the fickle language peeve fray.

From Slate • Apr. 28, 2020

To behold a grammatical descriptivist at war with a grammatical prescriptivist who happens to be her twin is truly an uncommon pleasure.

From New York Times • Feb. 6, 2020

Pinker, who has felt unfairly dismissed as a descriptivist, says that his new usage does not reflect either camp.

From The New Yorker • Nov. 3, 2014

White, and William Safire, and such allegedly descriptivist writers on language as Hitchings, Lane Greene, John McWhorter—and me.

From Slate • May 31, 2012

And not even the supposedly descriptivist dictionaries leave their users in doubt as to what the standard forms are.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker