Geol. [f. as prec. + -IST.] One who holds the theory of catastrophism; opposed to uniformitarian. Also attrib.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857), III. 509. Geologists who had been bred up in the catastrophist creed.
1879. Spencer, Data of Ethics, iv. § 17. For a generation after geologists had become uniformitarians in Geology, they remained catastrophists in Biology.
1879. Lit. World, 161/1. We are still catastrophists in judging of history.
