[f. STYLE sb. + -IST. Cf. F. styliste (late 19th c.), G. stilist.] A writer who is skilled in or cultivates the art of literary style; a writer as characterized by his style.
1795. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., XVIII. 522. He even delights in assisting the reader to trace his eternal allusions to their source; in pointing out … the stylist whose epithet he transplants, or the philosopher whose inference he impresses.
a. 1849. Poe, Henry Cary, Wks. 1865, III. 68. A style that, as times go—in view of such stylists as Mr. Briggs for example—may be termed respectable.
1873. Fitzedward Hall, Mod. Engl., 10. The latter [Addison] while notably distinguished, as a stylist, for ease,… combines with it the extreme of inexactness.
1882. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 127. Cotton’s version ‘orator’ here misrepresents the French ‘orateur,’ which means ‘stylist,’ not speaker.
1882. Jebb, Bentley, 208. By his Latin compositions … Scaliger is connected with the Italian age of Latin stylists.
1882. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 June, 5. She has evidently adopted for her model two great living stylists, Mr. Pater and Mr. J. A. Symonds.
1911. G. Macdonald, Roman Wall Scot., i. 15. The result is not favourable to Herodian, who was too much of a stylist to live up to his own professions.
