[f. as prec. + -IST.]
1. One who deals in, or directs his attention to, words only, apart from reality or meaning.
c. 1609. F. Greville, Hum. Learn., xxxi. (1894), 209. Yet not ashamed these Verbalists still are … To engage the Grammar rules in civil war For some small sentence which they patronize.
1629. Gaule, Holy Madn., 100. Vaine Verbalists! whose words are but wind.
1660. Gauden, Brownrig, 171. Not that he was such a Formalist, Verbalist, and Sententiolist, as could not endure any alteration of words, or phrases, or method.
a. 1750. A. Hill, Wks. (1753), II. 236. God grant now, that he mayn’t think, I have piddled out this little heedlessness, with purpose to be even with him, in behalf of the poor verbalists.
1797. Monthly Mag., III. 509. That this circumstance should have escaped the notice of mere verbalists, is not surprising.
1864. Reader, No. 99. 638/2. The extreme conclusions of the Verbalists.
1883. J. Parker, Apost. Life, II. 15. The mere verbalist; yes, and even the mocker, may find his way into the church.
b. attrib. or as adj.
1889. J. M. Robertson, Ess. Crit. Meth., 130. The verbalist and confused pantheism of last century. Ibid. (1891), Mod. Humanists, 43. He himself became viciously verbalist.
2. One who is skilled in the use or knowledge of words.
1794. T. Taylor, Pausanias’s Descr. Greece, I. Pref. p. viii. His meaning is, frequently, on this account, inaccessible to the most consummate verbalists. Ibid. (1822), Apuleius, 351. This blunder of the editor, who was otherwise a good verbalist, is a deplorable specimen of ignorance in things of the greatest importance.
1860–1. Philol. Soc. Trans., 164. The opinion of the best English verbalist I ever knew.
