Obs. [a. Fr. académiste: see ACADEMY and -IST.]

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  1.  An Academic philosopher; a skeptic.

2

c. 1730.  A. Baxter, Enq. into Nat. Soul (1745), II. 255. Sometimes a Dogmatist … and sometimes a regular and precise Academist.

3

1691.  Ray, Creation (1704), II. 386. These Academists [Aristotle and Pliny] do not refer merely to the lightness of this Creature’s Body.

4

  2.  A member of an academy for the promotion of arts or sciences. In this sense it is now supplanted by ACADEMICIAN.

5

1691.  Ray, Creation (1704), II. 384. The Parisian Academists observe of the Sea-Tortoise, that the Cleft of the Glottis was strait and close.

6

1782.  J. Warton, Ess. on Pope, II. ix. 70. Such is the Commentary of the academist on these famous lines.

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  3.  A pupil in a school for riding, etc. See ACADEMY 5.

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1651.  Evelyn, Diary, Sept. 7. Chevalier Paul … had never been an Academist, and yet govern’d a very unruly horse.

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