[f. as prec. + -IST.]
1. A compiler of or writer in an encyclopædia.
1651. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 278. Curtius … had been scholar to Alstedius, the Encyclopedist.
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, § 1. 31, note. St. Isidore … was the Pliny, the Bede, the Encyclopedist of his age.
b. esp. one of the writers of the French Encyclopédie (see ENCYCLOPÆDIA 2 b); often with a disparaging allusion to the tenets they promulgated.
1796. Hutton, Math. & Philos. Dict., Pref. 5. To have recourse to … the still more stupendous performance of the French Encyclopædists.
1800. Month. Mag., VIII. 597. The encyclopedists undertook to new model … the old-fashioned religious … opinions of that country [France].
1829. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), II. 53. What Steam-engine … did these Encyclopedists invent for mankind?
3. One who attempts to deal with every branch of knowledge, or whose studies have a very extensive range.
1871. Blackie, Four Phases, I. 132. Aristotle … like a true encyclopædist, was content to register the gods whom he had not the heart to worship.
