sb. (a.) Also taou-. [f. as prec. + -IST.] An adherent of Taoism.
1839. Gutzlaff & Reed, China Opened, II. xv. 228. Nor do the Chinese ever say, ‘I am a Budhuist, or Taouist,’ these distinctions they leave to the priests, whilst they are contented to shew their particular predilections to a creed by their donations.
1839. Chinese Repository, VII. 520. The Taouists are by no means behind in referring to an abode of lasting bliss, which does however still exist on earth.
1863. Alcock, Capital Tycoon, I. 392. [To] feel, or affect, great contempt for any creed but that of Taouists.
1885. Athenæum, 17 Oct., 500/3. It [the ‘Taou-tih-king’] may be considered, therefore, as the Bible of the Taouists.
b. attrib. or as adj. Of or belonging to the Taoists or to Taoism.
1839. Malcolm, Trav. II. III. v. 184. Great officers, and even the emperor himself, build and endow Boodhist and Taouist temples.
1882. Athenæum, 16 Sept., 361/2. With the exception of Laou-tsze, the early Taouist philosophers have found no place in English literature…. Though professing to be followers of Laou-tsze, they never perfectly understood him, and perverted his doctrines into childish babblings.
Hence Taoistic a.
1856. Meadows, Chinese, 440. Representatives of a Buddhistic or Taouistic element that is struggling with the Confucian element to assert for itself a place in the new religion.
1884. Brit. & For. Evangelical Rev., April, 367. The Taoistic, or Rationalistic system is about as old as Confucianism.
