diarist

American

[dahy-uh-rist] / ˈdaɪ ə rɪst /

noun

a person who keeps a diary.

diarist British

/ ˈdaɪərɪst /

noun

a person who keeps or writes a diary, esp one that is subsequently published

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

diaristic adjective

Etymology

Origin of diarist

First recorded in 1810–20; diar(y) + -ist

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

One diarist, Samuel Bamford, gave up a warehouse job to become a weaver and wrote that the change gave him leisure time to enjoy “country amusements with the other young fellows.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025

Everyone’s favorite analog diarist is smack dab in the middle of a universe ruled by tech.

From Salon • Feb. 13, 2025

On The Tortured Poets Department, she blurs the lines between her personas - writing both as diarist and fantasist, sometimes within the same song.

From BBC • Apr. 19, 2024

The youngest diarist, 10-year-old Yehor Kravtsov, also lived in besieged Mariupol.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 17, 2023

Women who knew Anne Frank in the Bergen-Belsen camp said that neither hunger nor typhus killed the young girl who would become the most famous diarist of the Nazi era.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023