[a. F. canoniste (15th c. in Littré), in med.L. canonista: see -IST.]
1. A professor of, or one skilled in, the canon law; a canon-lawyer.
1542. Brinklow, Complaynt, xxiv. (1874), 71. The greasy canonistes nosel the peple in idolatry.
1549. Latimer, Serm. Ploughers, 38. A cannoniste, that is to saye, one that is broughte up in the studie of the Pope’s lawes and decrees.
1643. Milton, Divorce (1851), Introd. 10. The shallow commenting of Scholasticks and Canonists.
1761. Sterne, Tr. Shandy (1802), IV. xxiii. 99. I am a vile canonist, replied Yorick.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. App. 652. It offended against the strict laws of the Church as understood by continental canonists.
2. One who makes or upholds canons in science, criticism, etc.
1786–1805. H. Tooke, Purley, I. vi. (1829), 93. If the etymological canonists … had not been so remarkably inattentive to the causes … of those literal changes of which they treat.
