[f. VIOL sb.1 + -IST.] A player on the viol. (Also as the title of a book.)
c. 1670. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), I. 274. He was a violinist, and the two former violists.
a. 1699. B. Hely (title), The compleat Violist, or An Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Bass Viol.
1705. Phil. Trans., XXV. 2069. Upon these, a Sonata was perform’d by those two most eminent Violists.
a. 1734. North, Lives, I. 13. He outdid all his teachers and became one of the neatest violists of his time.
1782. Burney, Hist. Music (1789), II. iv. 266. The Minstrels … were at all times the best Violists of their age.
1894. Daily News, 5 Feb., 5/3. A large viol, so large that a boy was placed inside to sing the air while the violist played the bass.
