variationistn.
/ˌvɛːrɪˈeɪʃn̩ɪst/, U.S. /ˌvɛriˈeɪʃənəst/ 1.
a. One who composes musical variations.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > music > composing music > composer > [noun] > composer by type of music
fuguist1789
symphonist1789
melodist1826
threnodist1827
instrumentalist1838
melophonist1847
polyphonist1864
musical dramatist1866
operettist1867
tone poet1874
orchestrator1875
French Impressionist1876
monodist1888
romantic1892
neoclassicist1899
orchestralist1899
variationist1900
mensuralist1901
tone-painter1903
impressionist1908
pre-Romantic1918
phrase-maker1924
polytonalist1925
atonalist1929
dodecaphonist1953
serialist1954
twelve-toner1955
miniaturist1962
minimalist1969
tonalist1982
1900 J. Huneker Mezzotints Mod. Music i. 35 Brahms is not only the greatest variationist of his times, but with Bach and Beethoven the greatest of all times.
b. One who practises variation or introduces variety in anything.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > relationship > variety > [noun] > one who practises variation
variationist1926
1926 H. W. Fowler Dict. Mod. Eng. Usage 132/1 The writers are confirmed variationists.
1928 J. Y. T. Greig Breaking Priscian's Head 66 Mr Fowler..pokes fun at the ‘elegant variationist’.
1981 N.Y. Times 25 Jan. ii. 25/4 Johns is by nature a variationist—someone who hates to let a good idea go while there is still something that can be done with it.
1981 N.Y. Times 2 Oct. c28/6 It works wonderfully well in terms of Mr. Judd's skill as a variationist. Every one of the 10 sections of the work has the same basic set of themes.
2. Biology. One who regards variation of species as the cause of new forms.
ΚΠ
1859 J. D. Hooker in Life (1918) I. xxiv. 484 Thwaites was once a devoted variationist.
3. One who studies variations in usage among different speakers of the same language.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > other schools of linguistics > [noun] > linguistic geography or dialectology > one who studies
dialectician1848
dialectologist1871
dialectologer1881
social dialectologist1965
variationist1975
1975 Amer. Speech 1973 48 37 What variationists have discovered is the extraordinary stylistic and sociological importance of such variation, and the apparently remarkable consistency with which the frequency of a given alternant is patterned throughout society and throughout an individual's stylistic repertoire.
1978 Archivum Linguisticum 9 48 Committed variationists..seem to disagree on how variation is to be incorporated into the grammar of a language.
1983 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 28 i. 82 It is not, however, a problem for the variationists, but for those who would arbitrarily reduce linguistics to a branch of cognitive psychology.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1916; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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