automatistn.1
/ɔːˈtɒmətɪst/, U.S. /ɔˈtɑmədəst/, /əˈtɑmədəst/, /ɑˈtɑmədəst/ A maker of automata.
ΚΠ
1859 F. C. L. Wraxall tr. J. E. Robert-Houdin Mem. I. ix. 173 ‘In this [automaton] duck’, the celebrated automatist [Fr. automatiste] writes, ‘will be noticed the mechanism of the viscera [etc.].’
1882 Ogilvie's Imperial Dict. (new ed.) 188/3 Automatist,..one who makes automata.
1969 Isis 60 453 Salomon de Cause..was the best known of the automatists of the period, and his productions were truly magnificent.
1990 Times 28 Aug. 12/4 Everything in the cafe, even the dog wagging its tail, is an automaton made of tin... [The] intricate project..involved more than two dozen automatists.
2003 Independent (Nexis) 10 Dec. (Features section) 18 There will also be workshops at which adults and children can learn how to make their own automata, and lectures by automatists.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
automatistn.2adj.
/ɔːˈtɒmətɪst/, U.S. /ɔˈtɑmədəst/, /əˈtɑmədəst/, /ɑˈtɑmədəst/ A. n.2
1.
a. Chiefly Spiritualism. A person engaged in or subject to automatism (automatism n. 4a); spec. a medium who produces automatic writing.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the paranormal > [noun] > activity as spontaneous or non-volitional > automatist
automatist1861
1861 G. H. Forbes Let. 9 May in T. P. Barkas Investig. Mod. Spiritualism (1862) 154 Whilst the odylists and automatists speculate about an action on the brain, we cut the matter short, and say, there stand the spirits themselves.
1885 F. W. H. Myers in Proc. Soc. Psychical Res. 3 41 I have seen an automatist writing page after page in ordinary handwriting, and then a page in mirror-writing.
1914 A. T. de Mattos tr. M. Maeterlinck Unknown Guest iii. 101 Sometimes..the ‘automatist’ speaks or writes languages of which he is completely ignorant.
1951 A. Huxley Let. 9 June (1969) 635 Practically all automatists sooner or later produce spontaneously scripts of a philosophical nature.
1990 L. Picknett Encycl. Paranormal 270/2 It was discovered that the automatic scripts from different automatists bore certain significant resemblances to one another.
b. An artist, writer, etc., whose technique is based upon automatism (automatism n. 4b).
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [noun] > automatism > artist
automatist1952
1952 Masses & Mainstream Sept. 31/2 The modern surrealists and automatists with their circles and dots.
1976 I. Sandler Triumph Amer. painting 113 Pollock's ‘drip’ painting evolved primarily from the..internal development of his own style, and from suggestions by Graham and the Surrealist automatists, which fostered this development.
1984 Leonardo 17 252/1 (note) Chief among the automatists were Miro, Arp, Ernst,..and Matta.
2009 P. Halasz Mem. Creativity ii. x. 145 The automatists experimented in their picture-making, utilizing chance, accident, and the unconscious.
2. An adherent of the theory or doctrine of automatism (automatism n. 1); a person who believes organisms are motivated by mechanical and physical causes rather than consciousness or will. Now chiefly historical.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > zoology > [noun] > specific theories or systems > advocates of
quinarian1836
automatist1863
trituberculist1896
1863 Intellectual Observer July 444 It is admitted, even by the automatists, that animals have a consciousness of their existence, but then they say they have no power of thought.
1877 F. W. Newman in Fraser's Mag. May 666/1 He [sc. the Materialist] represents us as mere machines..and treats it as a delusion, if we suppose that we have any power of choice... Automatist may therefore be a better name than Materialist.
1907 Pop. Sci. Monthly Feb. 150 The plain man is quite right in refusing to regard himself as an automaton... [But] I shall try to show that the frank acceptance of their fundamental thesis need not make a man an automatist at all.
1910 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 7 583 The apriorist was battling with the sensationalist,..the automatist with the spiritualist.
1997 E. S. Reed From Soul to Mind (1998) viii. 156 Automatists like Huxley and Tyndall were positivists, but so was Lewes, who thought they had gotten everything about the nervous system topsy-turvy.
B. adj. (attributive).
Of, relating to, or using automatism (chiefly in sense A. 1).
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the paranormal > [adjective] > automatism
automatic1855
automatist1920
1920 W. B. Yeats in Lady Gregory Visions & Beliefs West of Ireland II. 43 He gathered the opinions, as he believed, of spirits speaking through a great number of automatists and trance speakers.
1959 Listener 2 July 26/2 Exhibitions by their own artists, in the international idioms of pure Abstract, Abstract-Concrete, Tâchiste, Automatist [etc.].
1980 A. C. Ritchie Masters Brit. Painting 146 This admission of the automatist, intuitional basis of art is in itself an acceptance, whether knowingly or not, of one of the chief tenets of the surrealist faith.
2008 New Yorker 10 Nov. 90/1 With cultivated ‘automatist’ spontaneity, he worked on raw canvas, copper, and the recently invented Masonite.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.11859
n.2adj.1861